


Living Dangerously

by CGPHadley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Romance, Cheating, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Forbidden Love, Gryffindor/Slytherin Inter-House Relationships, Humor, Romance, Scandal, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-04-18 23:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14224671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CGPHadley/pseuds/CGPHadley
Summary: An accident during potions class forces Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass to work together for a detention. One thing leads to many others, and a sordid romance is born.





	1. Detention

**Author's Note:**

> Important Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts or any of the characters featured in this story, they belong to the rightful owners JK Rowling and Warner Bros. This work is merely a piece of fiction based on their work.
> 
> Why am I bothering to put this even though it's obvious? Gives the illusion of professionalism, like I'm not a failed actor who works in a café and writes fanfiction about preteen wizards. This is the second place I have this story uploaded, as I'm trying to make the leap from FanFiction.Net to this website. 
> 
> The story so far: This story begins approximately half way through Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts, albeit with some slight changes in continuity. He and Ginny have begun dating a year earlier, something which you will see explained in the context of the story. Besides that, everything predating this chapter is identical to what's seen in the movies.
> 
> And now, presenting…

Daphne Greengrass was at her boiling point. Over the course of her day things had been getting progressively worse; she'd overslept this morning, been late to Charms class as a result and received a mark down for it, hit her head on a low-hanging torch in the dungeons in her rush to get to  _this_  lesson on time, and was now receiving detention  _in_  said lesson.

Okay so... in the big picture, her problems weren't the absolutely  _worst,_  but… it had been a long day.

She had been paired with Gryffindor's Golden Boy, Harry-Perfect-Potter, in today's Potion's lesson. Which fair enough, she could handle. She didn't particularly like him, but outside from his famed messiah complex, he'd never done anything to her personally. Unlike most wizards and witches in her house, Daphne attempted to keep above the rivalry Slytherin and Gryffindor shared. She considered herself a student prodigy, and found the whole thing to be beneath her. But saying all this, any suspicions of dislike she had about him now were confirmed.

"I shan't hear another word of it. You'll both serve after school detentions with me for the rest of the week!" Professor Snape had snapped.

Her priority now was remaining calm. She had a reputation among the professors as one of the schools best students, scornfully second only to Hermione Granger. She never got into trouble during lessons, and right now she refused to dig herself any deeper. She was an adult and would rise above it. She wasn't about to cause a second incident over plain pettiness.

Although Daphne Greengrass was her birth name, she was known to a lot of the schools population by a different name: the Ice Queen. She was known for being famously cold and antisocial to her fellow classmates, and truth be told, it wasn't a nickname she terribly minded. It kept those that she didn't care for away, and let's face it, sounded pretty cool. Daphne never deliberately intended for her attitude to come across the way it did, she just knew the importance of putting her education before her personal life. And her classmates interpreting that as her being antisocial, frankly, was not her problem. It was their decision to give her that nickname, but it had been hers to roll with it.

" _Friends are just distractions!_ " she'd once heard Pansy Parkinson say while doing an (admittedly, quite good) impression of her. Daphne wasn't on bad terms with any of her classmates, but she thought of them more than acquaintances than her friends. Her friendship circle was in fact, extremely limited, including only her younger sisters.

"Yes, Professor," she mumbled scornfully. " _Sorry_ , Professor."

She'd go to these detentions and get them over with. But she would make it clear she was attending under protest.

Now the room had emptied and she and Potter stood alone before their Potions Master. When their potion had gone up in flames it had exploded, releasing thick fumes into the air, most of which still lingered. Humidity was at a peak, forcing sweat from her brow and several other places. That was another thing that contributed to surrendering her argument; she was absolutely boiling and really couldn't afford the added stress.

"Sir, not to sound bad or anything, but why exactly am I here?" A voice said beside her.

Daphne caught herself repressing the urge to growl.

"As I have  _already_  said," Snape was growing impatient. "You and Miss Greengrass  _failed_  to complete your potion, and  _succeeded_  in ruining my lesson with your distraction. Ten points from Gryffindor for speaking out of turn."

It was clear Potter didn't mind escalating this into something more, which further annoyed her. The last thing she wanted was Umbridge involving herself, that would really be the final nail in the coffin. But then again, it was him that made the error in their ingredients, so it made sense that he'd feel the need to drag it out, more than likely to avoid the blame being place on him.

* * *

Harry groaned.

Not only had he been  _wrongly_  accused of exploding his potion, now he was facing an hour's detention to rebrew it. And with a Slytherin nonetheless? Granted he'd never formally spoken to this one, but Harry had yet to meet a Slytherin he didn't despise, and a nickname like hers didn't just happen by accident.

Harry recalled back when he'd been given his first detention by Snape, during first year.

He'd been utterly mortified.

Since then he'd lost count of how many hours he'd spent sat in this man's classroom. Even Hermione had stopped getting surprised by it now. As their class had filed out of the room, she reacted no differently to any of the other times he'd received detention, and just watched with a look that said 'see you in the common room'. Ron on the other hand, he and the Weasley twins seemed to have a competition between over who could get into the most trouble with Snape. A competition Harry wasn't aware he had entered, or that he was apparently in the lead.

He looked down at his watch.

4:00 pm.

It wasn't that bad... if Snape kept his word and let him go in an half an hour, he'd still have some free time before curfew. An hour of Quidditch, or maybe somewhere with Ron and Hermione. He and Ginny hadn't gotten to spend a lot of time together this year since they started seeing each other, so that's probably where his priorities should lay. Frankly at this point, he'd rather settle for Aragog.

He looked over to the student next to him, and like any teen boy would, briefly examined her figure.

Being a Slytherin didn't mean she couldn't be attractive -and blimey- calling her attractive would be an insult. She wore the basic Hogwarts uniform, but with slight... adjustments. Her skirt ended just before her knee-length green and silver socks began, giving a peep-hole view of her thighs. Her blonde hair had frizzed out and now trailed down her back, disregarding the usual rules that long hair was to be put in a bun during lesson. And there was something else; she was redder than a Weasley family reunion. At first Harry suspected she had caught his wandering eyes, but then he had caught onto how humid the dungeon air was around them.

He loudly coughed. It wasn't like him to be that crude. He forced his eyes away from his potions partner and focused on someone on the opposite end of the spectrum: Snape.

"Today, tomorrow and Friday I will expect you both to return to this room for half an hour's detention. During that time you will complete the potion, and if it's anything less than perfect you will both fail this unit. Have I made myself clear?" They nodded. "Good. I take it you already know the ingredients and where to get them. If you need me, I shall be in the staff room trying to enjoy the rest of my night.  _Try_  not need me. I'll be back when time is up, and when I return I expect the potion to be over halfway completed. Questions?"

The two shook their heads in unison and watched as the potions master left.

"Merlin, the heat in here is unbearable," Daphne said, mostly to herself.

" _Think_  that's our fault…" Harry forced an awkward laugh. When his laugh went ignored, he simply turned his attention towards their cauldron.

"Well, let's get on with it."

Daphne rolled her eyes, and muttered something under her breath.

Harry scowled at her. He'd not been around her more than a few minutes but already go the impression she was up herself. Reluctantly, living with the Dursleys had given him a high annoyance threshold, so he but didn't rise to it. A good thing as well, as the temperature in the room was increasing by the minute. Not to mention the air itself felt like drinking soup. Neither of them wanted to be here, and he was sure one thing they could agree on was they both wanted to get out of here as quickly and as calmly as possible.

He collected up the first ingredient from the table and began separating them into the cauldron.

Daphne fanned at her face, her cool exterior betraying nothing of the stressed and annoyed girl underneath. Her eyes wandered over to her potions partner.

She admitted, he was cute. She didn't believe in dating classmates, but that didn't mean she wasn't allowed to look. Gryffindor or not, Harry Potter was fit, end of. Unfortunately she hadn't had time to divert her eyes before he caught her staring at him. She looked away, embarrassment written across her face.

"What?"

"None of your business."

Harry took a look back at the cauldron, then back at her.

"You going to help?"

Her immediate response to his question was to grind her teeth together.

Apparently, Potter had a mouth on him today.

Well two could play at that game.

"Perhaps."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Well I'm not doing all the work again."

Daphne's eyebrows snapped up to the ceiling. A flare of temper inside her ignited, and this time she didn't have the self control to ignore it.

"Again? You did absolutely nothing today bar make childish faces at Weasel from across the room?"

Harry frowned.

"And you just sat and watched? You literally put your feet up?"

"We had  _finished_  by the time I rested, I'll remind you," she said through her teeth. "And the only reason we finished early was because you had  _me_  working with you. In fact, you know what, no," Daphne shook her head.

She was better than this; she wasn't going to get involved with this boys childishness and risk further detention time. She gritted her teeth, rolled up her sleeves and forced a smile.

"What ingredients do you need?"

Harry stared at her coldly.

"The Chizpurfle carapaces... I think they're under there," he pointed across the room.

"Pardon?"

Harry's glare became one to rival a Basilisk.

He knew exactly what she was trying to do. He knew, but he really couldn't find the effort in him to argue it. He wasn't going to scoop to her level and risk getting in further trouble with Snape when he returned.

"The Chizpurfle carapaces,  _p_ _lease_."

Daphne smiled at him sweetly and turned on her heels. She skipped over to the table cabinet and bent down. Harry attempted to divert his eyes, but found them drawn to the girls figure yet again. He lightly coughed to himself.

The heat must be really getting to him.

"There you go," Daphne handed him the ingredients. "What else do you need, daddy?"

A hot flush hit Harry, and his mouth spoke before his brain was able to silence it.

"Greengrass, can we  _just_ get this finished? I don't want to be here anymore than you do."

Daphne had only just taken her seat before she was instantly on her feet again.

"Indeed, and if you hadn't have pushed me I wouldn't have dropped the bottle in the cauldron and we wouldn't  _be_  here, would we?"

The speed her words came out indicated she'd said that all on a single, forced-out breath.

"I didn't push you, I was trying to squeeze past you."

Daphne raised an eyebrow.

"Was that a fat joke? Because I don't think you're in any position to be body shaming anybody with that ugly scar on your forehead."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I  _wasn't_ calling you fat. You're not fat. I meant you were stood in my way, you  _should_  have been paying attention."

"Mmhmm. Next time focus less on my figure and maybe then you can pay attention to what you're doing."

Harry looked away, blushing. She had officially succeeded in making him uncomfortable. He gave her a disgusted look. He opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish, unable to find his words. He looked at her, back at the cauldron, than back at her. Breaking the exchange, he returned to the cauldron and began shuffling blindly through ingredients.

"So no apology?"

"I  _just_ want to get this done," he pleaded.

There was a desperation in his voice that pleaded mercy. Truth be told, Daphne herself didn't know why she was getting so determined to argue, but decided to let the train ride. She'd deal with the repercussions later, right now she just had a lot of pent up energy and needed somewhere to direct it. She approached him from behind.

"You don't get to call me fat then act like nothing happened. Didn't your mother teach you how to treat a lady?"

The second the words left her mouth she realized she shouldn't have spoken.

She  _definitely_  shouldn't have spoken.

What was she doing? Why was she deliberately trying to patronize him? He was absolutely right, neither of them wanted to be there and they should just work together to get it over with. So why the hell did she just say that? She wasn't  _that_  harsh. What had come over her?

Now it was Harry's turn to make to her feel uncomfortable. As she opened her mouth to apologize, he span around.

"I'm surprised  _you_  have nerve to talk about parents."

She furrowed her brow.

"What do you mean?"

"I saw your father there, the night Voldemort returned."

Daphne winced at the name.

Her first instinct was to correct him, but she caught her words in her throat. Still reeling from the low blow she'd just dealt him, she decided it was probably best to not push it.

"That isn't true."

"If it's not true why did I see him there?"

"You did not."

"Yes I did."

" _No_ , you didn't. You don't even know what he looks like, so drop it."

Her voice was quieter noticeably quieter. She was on the defensive, not only because she was absolutely right, but now the roles had reversed and it was her who wanted to get back on with the lesson.

"About 6 foot? Blonde hair? Goatee?" Harry gestured to his height, hair and face.

A fire suddenly surged through Daphne's veins.

She pushed him back across the cauldron, closing in inches away from his face. During their argument the two had gotten very close, and their words now became harsh whispers.

"You are making some  _wild_  accusations, Potter."

"And?"

"You  _shut up_  about my family," she snapped. "At least I  _have_  one."

The two couldn't move any closer now.

During their argument they'd been approaching each other -and unless one of them was a ghost, they'd reached the end of the line. Their legs were intertwined and their noses pressed against each other. Their faces were steaming red with anger, ready to attack.

Daphne's chest was pushed up against Harry's ribs, and for a split second, his eyes flickered down. An eyeful of the girls exposed cleavage was enough to activate his beta male instincts and make him look away, dragging his eyes back to hers. But his glance hadn't been subtle in this slightest, and it was immediately apparent she'd seen him look. But despite Daphne's flushing cheeks, she didn't pull away.

The whole time they had been arguing, they'd been aware of the heat around them, both metaphorically and physically.

What they hadn't been paying attention to, however, was the source producing the heat. Behind Harry, their ruined potion had been bubbling away, releasing fumes and gases into the dungeon air for most of the day. The gas drifted upwards filling the room and being allowed the chance to ferment, before now being inhaled by the two of them. Clearly, whatever potion was attempting to be made during their lesson, they had failed at making it. And by sheer accident, they had given birth to something else. Something which affects were already taking their toll.

Though they were too preoccupied to notice it, they had both become light-headed, and their bodies numb to the environment around them. It was like being drunk, but also not.

A sudden hormonal rage began brewing in both of them.

Anger, and rage... but it wasn't bad. It was passion. It was  _ecstasy_. And... it felt good.

Like the potion, an instinct deep inside them had been steadily building, bubbling away, and had finally broken it's way to the surface.

With force, they sealed the distance between them. Daphne grabbed the back of Harry's head and pressed her lips against his. Her tongue dove into his mouth and was met instantly with his own. The two let out a mutual gasp of satisfaction, He wrapped his arms tightly around the girls waist and pulled her in, returning the kiss.

It wasn't enough.

They wanted more.

There was liquid magma pumping through their veins. With a sudden jump, she wrapped her legs around Harry's torso and lifted herself onto him. She hadn't even waited to see if he was strong enough to lift her weight, which thankfully he was. She just wanted him in this moment. Him,  _all_  of him. The was no world around her. Just her and Potter. Just Potter. And he hadn't missed his chance. With hands like lightening, he'd grabbed two handfuls of the girls read-end, steadying her/ At his touch, Daphne's head seemed to explode with an climax of pleasure. She moaned softly and smiled into his lips.

The heat around them was swallowing the two up. Their heartbeats become earthquakes around them, and only the sound of their shared, shallow breaths filled the air. They were both trembling with guilty desire, but damn... did it feel right!

Yes! Yes!

Harry broke away and began to plant kisses down her neck. A fragile whimper was the only response she managed. A restless hand leaked away from the back of his head and began to explore the rest of his body in a way no woman had done before. Her other hand forced down on him, forcing his kissing deeper into her neck crevasse. He bit gently at her neck, and another tidal wave of excited pleasure swept over her. She bit down hard on her bottom lip, cursing.

Harry released her neck and dove into another wet kiss. She began grinding her top half against his chest. Her movements instilled a primal-like grunt off Harry, a noise she'd never imagine a boy like him to make, which it did nothing but add further heat to their kiss.

Daphne suddenly pulled apart, shaking her head to brush aside a stray hair that had began to join in on their kissing. Harry turned on his heels, swinging the girl around placing her on the rim of the cauldron. He pulled his hands out from beneath her and began feeling his way around her body as she had done to him.

"Ohhh my..." she moaned.

Daphne tugged off her black cloak. Her white shirt suddenly seemed a lot tighter than it did earlier, as if begging to be pulled off.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"

Harry was then grabbed by the shoulders and torn him viciously from his partner. Frightened, dazed and confused, the boy fell to the floor as all feelings of lust and excitement vanished in an instant.

He looked up, as a thousand realities seemed to hit him at once.

Daphne was still on the cauldron, legs open from where she had been pulling him close. Snape was looking between the two, mouth hanging agape. In any other situation, seeing him in this state would have been hilarious. He looked like he'd caught the two students committing a murder.

And maybe in some way, he had done.

The implications of what the two had just descended upon them like a train, and their looks of shock were replaced with terror and guilt.

"Potter! Greengrass!" The Professor practically screamed. "Dormitories, now! Get the  _hell_  out of my classroom!"

The two didn't have to be told twice.

Daphne scrambled to grab her fallen cloak and tie and took off in a run towards the door, with Harry following closely behind. As the door slammed shut behind them, the two didn't even stop to acknowledge each other in the corridor and they ran quickly in opposite directions. Daphne, deeper into the dungeons, Harry, up to Gryffindor tower.

He didn't stop running until he reached the seventh floor. With each step towards the Fat Lady, reality became heavier and heavier on his shoulders. He couldn't begin to describe how he felt.

Disgusted.

Validated.

A traitor.

Ashamed.

_A cheat._

He was a cheat.

He'd cheated on Ginny. True, they weren't  _official_  official, but they'd been talking. They'd kissed. They were a thing.

And he'd cheated on her. With  _Daphne Greengrass_.

_"Password?"_

"What?"

He had appeared at the Fat Lady way quicker than he had noticed. And quicker than he had wanted.

 _"Password?"_  she repeated.

Harry shook his head.

"Sorry, Aspin."

_"Granted."_

The door swung open.

Harry took off running again, and went head-first into the group of people he least wanted to see right now.

Hermione and Ron were sat on the sofa, with Ginny perched on the arm beside them. They appeared to be deep in conversation. It didn't take them long to notice they weren't alone.

"Harry, whatever's the matter?" Hermione asked, clearly noticing Harry's state.

"Nothing!"

He began to shout, but caught himself. He took a breath.

"Just… tired. I'm just tired. Ran the whole way up."

"You sure mate? Look like you've seen a ghost," Ron said, standing up.

Ginny laughed.

"That's a  _pretty_  silly expression when you think about it about where we live."

Harry laughed, and nodded nervously.

"Yeah well... you know what that greasy git is like, doesn't know where to stop."

His friends looked at him as though he'd spoken to them in a different language.

"Harry, are you okay?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged her off, still nodding.

"I'm fine, just tired. I'm gonna turn in early."

Before the group had time to react, Harry moved past them and ran up to the boy's dormitory. He crossed the dorm in four large steps and collapsed his face first into his pillow. His thoughts from earlier continued to echo in his head.

He was a cheat.

A cheater. He had  _cheated_  on his girlfriend. He'd cheated on his best friend's sister.

With  _Daphne Greengrass_.

He couldn't control himself. It was just like something had taken over him. One minute they were arguing, the next minute… If Snape hadn't had interrupted them, Harry had no doubt they'd have gone all the way. In that moment he had wanted nothing more than her,  _all_  of her. He didn't know what came over him. He'd never even been that intimate with a girl before, the most he and Ginny had done was heavy petting and weak kisses. Yet he'd been so in control and forceful, but at the same time, a million miles away from what he was doing. It felt like it had been a dream, like he wasn't in control of his own body.

And it felt so  _right_. It was a trance, like he was drunk on her. It only lasted for a few seconds, but the world and its rules had melted away and all he wanted in that moment was  _her_. Just Greengrass. That had worn off the second Snape had interrupted them, and now he did have to deal with the consequences.

He rolled over and stared at his ceiling.

He'd cheated. It was only a kiss… Well, and some heavy petting. It didn't mean anything, but it didn't change the situation. He'd betrayed Ginny's trust. He didn't know how he did it, or why, but he couldn't take it back. This was going to break her. How the hell was he going to tell her?  _Could_  he even tell her? If he did, no doubt it would be the end for them. And then Ron? Harry doubted he'd stay friends with the guy who broke his sister's heart. And if Ron and Ginny left him, Hermione would follow. He would lose everything because of this.

Harry sighed. He knew the reality of the situation was rapidly becoming obvious.

He couldn't tell her. He could  _never_  tell her. He'd have to take this to his grave.

He didn't know how or why it had happened. But it had. It had happened, and now it was in the past. It was over now and it hadn't changed anything. Their relationship hadn't changed, he still felt the same way towards Ginny he always had. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, right?

Harry's heart sank as the realization of what he'd just become dawned on him.

On the bright side, he didn't ever have to see or speak to Daphne Greengrass again. Without her in his life, he could move past this and forget. He could probably fool himself into believing this was all one big, messed up dream.

_"Today, tomorrow and Friday I will expect you both to return to this room for an hour's detention."_

"Ughhhhh."


	2. Detention Dos

The next day passed thankfully quick for Harry. It was a Saturday, which meant no lesson, but it also meant it was considerably more difficult to avoid his friends.

He wasn't up for facing them. Not yet, anyway. He knew he'd have to eventually, just...

It'd be a while before he'd be able to look Ron or Hermione in the eye again, never mind Ginny. He'd been able to get away with spending the day down on the Quidditch Pitch, practicing in solace to try and clear his head.

_"Two more detentions, then I'll never have to see her again. She probably won't even mention it. She's probably just as embarrassed about it as I am."_

Despite his attempts, it was useless. He still couldn't wrap his head around what had happened the previous night. It had all been so alien to him that he couldn't a point of reference to begin working his problem out. He tried inventing his own solutions, his head canon being that she'd tricked him and slipped him a love potion, but somehow he didn't find that very likely. Some were just plain ridiculous, like Voldemort trying to set the two up so she could get close to him and kill him. By far one of his most creative ideas was that Ginny altered his dreams so he merely  _thought_  all of ot had happened, to see if he'd stay loyal. When he finally ran out of weird and wonderful solutions, he finally accepted what had happened.

He'd snogged Daphne Greengrass. He didn't know  _why_  he had, or what he was thinking, but he had.

In the dark recesses of his mind, although he didn't like to admit it, he  _was_  playing devil's advocate.

He  _could_  have done worse.

Daphne Greengrass was one of, if not  _the_  best looking girl in Slytherin... although that wasn't saying much. Millicent Bulstrode for example, if he'd gotten off with her she'd have crushed him when wrapping her legs around him. Pansy Parkinson was another name that came to mind. She wasn't that bad looking, but she obsessed with Malfoy to the point where even the professors were worried about her. Then there was Tracey Davis, who if he wasn't mistaken, was a friend of Daphne's. She was average looking enough, but he'd never spoken to her. The only thing notable thing about her was a brown woolly hat she always wore, he remembered once joking with Fred and George she was growing Voldemort under it.

If it was any other time, and he was any other lad living any other life, he'd probably pat himself on the back for it.

But the more Harry thought about what happened, the heavier he felt the secret become.

He really needed to tell somebody. Only problem was… that would involve  _telling_  somebody, which he wasn't sure he was ready to do. It wasn't something he wanted to ever do, but as his mental health was declining by the minute, the possibility of it became ever likely. And logically, given that the only people who knew what happened were him, Snape and her... And he  _definitely_  wasn't going to talk to Snape about girls...

Realistically, he knew what he needed to do, he just didn't want to accept it.

He had to  _talk_  to Daphne.

There was no way she wasn't thinking the same thing as him. They needed to talk it out. He had no idea what he was going to say to her… he was kind of relying it would suddenly come to him when he confronted her. But he  _needed_  to say something.

His thoughts then began to drift to Daphne and what she was doing at this moment. He only begged she'd kept as quiet about it as he had.

* * *

Traitor.

Idiot.

_Slut._

All throughout the day Daphne had been recalling moments from last night. It was a Saturday, so she'd gotten away with spending the day alone in the library. She'd tried to act casual, but that wasn't easy with Tracey's eagle eyes. When she'd arrived back at common room last night she'd been in a state, and Tracey was the first one to jump on her. She'd instantly known something was up, but Daphne had been able to play it off as though she was simply devastated over getting detention. If Tracey knew the truth about what she'd done last night… about  _who_  she'd nearly done…

Daphne winced.

 _"Ughhhh,_ " she groaned at the thought of him

Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. The Gryffindor Golden Boy. Of all people in the school… she really couldn't have got herself into a worst situation.

What had happened to her? She tried raking her brains for possibilities. Potter had been given no opportunities to drug or cast a spell on her, and given his horrified reaction at the Professor catching them, she doubted he was behind it.

What would her father think if her knew? Or her classmates? She always secretly had a bit of a kink when it came to living on the wild side. That's what a lifetime of rules and strict punishments will do to you. But this? She'd really embraced the spirit of Slytherin; she was now a genuine snake in the grass.

She shook her head. The only people that about it were herself, Snape and  _him_ … and she was willing to die if it meant keeping it that way. If all went according to plan, she and Potter would serve the next two detentions in silence and then never mention it again. It wasn't an ideal solution; as  _she_  still knew what had happened, but it was a compromise. She had scrubbed so hard night in the shower last night, attempting to erase every trace of him from her body. She just thanked Merlin it hadn't had gone any further, if it had she wouldn't have known what to do with herself. There would be no coming back from that, she didn't even want to think about the possibilities.

Although, she did at least have a slight chuckle as she imagined the looks horrified looks on her classmates face when they found out. She didn't necessarily dislike her classmates, but she'd distance herself from them wherever possible. And what better way to distance yourself than spitting in the face of their precious house rivalry. Besides that, there was nothing positive to take from what she'd done. She'd betrayed the Greengrass family and fraternized with the enemy. Daphne's destiny was decided for her long before she was born, and it was very much on the opposite side of Potters little war.

She began to think of him, and what he was doing at this moment. She could only pray that he had stayed as secretive as she had done about the whole situation. He was known to be a bit of a lad, but he wasn't the type to start bragging about it to his housemates, was he? To be fair, Daphne had been in the library all day… he could have telling everybody who would listen about their encounter and she'd be none the wiser.

As the clock struck four she was brought out of her thoughts and began prepping for detention.

* * *

A ten minutes later, Harry and Snape stood outside the potions classroom, waiting patiently for Daphne to arrive. Harry really wished she'd get a move on, as he could feel Snape's death glare burning deep into the back of his skull. When she finally did arrive, Harry's sighed of relief was soon replaced by a wash over of dread. Being in her mere presence again triggered a flood of emotions and memories. She wore her wearing the same outfit she had the previous night, complete with the high skirt and knee socks. The only difference was this time she looked a bit worse for wear, and obviously hadn't attempted to put on any make-up this morning. Harry's eyes carefully avoided hers as she made her way towards them.

"About time. Follow me," Snape commanded.

The two student's obeyed, and followed Snape (at a distance) into his classroom. Without sparing each other a glance, the two students got to work. Harry pulled the potion ingredients from the supply cupboard and approached the cauldron, while Daphne set about lighting the flame beneath it. Thankfully, the hot air had cleared from the previous night, but it had been replaced instead by a chilly silence. Harry was too preoccupied with measuring Billywig stings to notice somebody approaching him from behind.

"If you  _touch_  her again… you'll consider expulsion a blessing. Understand?"

Harry's eyes flickered to Daphne. She was stood with her nose buried deeply in the potions handbook.

"Yes, professor."

With that the professor left the room, leaving the two students alone together.

After hesitating, Daphne too made her way over to the ingredients cabinet and began rationing out what they needed. The two worked in complete silence, and by the time they were half way complete, the potion had begun emitting its hot fumes again. This didn't help the anxiety already coursing through the veins of the two students. With the tension adding to the airs thickness, the two had done everything in their power to avoid it having to ask one another for help. As they worked, Harry tried to pluck up the courage to say something.

Finally he took a deep breath and asked, "Greengrass?"

Daphne froze on the spot momentarily before answering.

"Yes?"

"I think we…  _I'd_  like to talk, about what happened... last night," Harry asked nervously.

Daphne took a deep breath.

Did he not know the plan? She had rehearsed this detention in her head a thousand times, he was supposed to stick to the script, dammit! This is what she had been dreading.

Time for Plan B.

"There is nothing to discuss," she stated in her best monotone. "I don't know what came over me and it won't happen again. It was a mistake, and I regret it. That's the end of it, and I ask you kindly to not tell anyone. Please."

Harry sighed, and gave a nod.

"Alright. Same."

He'd been hoping to discuss it with her properly. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, but he did expect to at least have a  _conversation_  about it. But then again, there had to be a reason she was called The Ice Queen. He thought he'd seen her getting wound up at him yesterday, but maybe that was his memories playing tricks on him. There's no way she could just be satisfied with leaving it there, could she?

Harry started to consider that maybe she actually didn't  _have_  any emotions. Hogwarts was a strange place, what if the girl wasn't even human? Professor Lupin looked human, as did Madam Hooch. He'd make a note to ask Professor Dumbledore about it when he next got the chance to see him next… as it probably wasn't the best thing to ask her at the moment.

After Daphne's statement, the two had remained very quiet during their detention. They had occasionally crossed paths or caught the other one glancing at them, but nothing more. A few minutes towards the end Snape had returned and congratulated them (mostly Daphne) and sent them off. Daphne quickly thanked him and left the room without a word or a second glance back. Unfortunately as Harry tried to make his escape, an arm appeared in the doorway.

"I trust that there was no…  _inappropriate_  business while I was away?"

Harry shook his head.

"No, Sir."

"Good, and I intend for it to stay that way tomorrow."

"Yes, Professor."

As Harry made his way up to the Gryffindor common room, his thoughts drifted back to Daphne and what she had said to him.

 _"It was a mistake,"_  she'd said.

He was somewhat disappointed she'd shut him down so quickly.

He had expected a long, awkward talk about their terms and conditions of not telling anybody. The fact was, technically  _she_  didn't do anything wrong. Sure she, a Slytherin, had gotten off with him, a Gryffindor, but the house rivalry was nothing compared to him actually cheating on Ginny. He needed to tell her this. He doubted she didn't know that he was in a relationship, as he and Ginny had always been public about seeing each other but he'd planned to stress the point of the Weasley's not finding out. Tomorrow was his last detention with Snape, and his last chance to set things straight with her. But, he had gotten what he wanted, for him and Daphne never to mention it again. Surely he should be settled on that?

He needed to clear his head.

Right now Ravenclaw were having their first match of the year with Hufflepuff, so the common room should be empty. He knew constantly avoiding his friends would start to look suspicious. He just needed to do it for one more day. Once his detentions were done he would never have to see and or speak to Daphne again and he could get back to his life.

It was just now it occurred to him what a big impact of his life this girl had made. Any normal boy in his situation would be constantly dreading The Dark Lord, terrified to even leave Hogwarts. But no, not Harry Potter.

In the midst of a war between the two greatest forces on Earth, Harry Potter was having girl problems.


	3. Detention Tres

Her eye twitched.

She was thinking about  _him_  again.

She was a traitor to her family and friends. She'd snogged Harry Potter, a person who, put lightly, has caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people in her life. A person who had been responsible for the imprisonment for half her aunts, cousins and uncles. She didn't harbor ill will to the mudbloods and half-bloods to the same extent her family did, but there was no denying that she and Potter were on opposite sides.

Daphne sat up, lifting the quilt covers off her.

The Slytherin girls dormitory was probably the best kept in the school. Each of the girls had their own private room, complete with double bed, wardrobe, bathroom and shower. Daphne had the privilege of picking out her own bed sheets at Diagon Ally during her third year, as until that age, all the girls would share one room. She'd chosen two emeralds green pillows and a pearly white bed sheet, classic Slytherin colors. Granted they wouldn't be very good at hiding evidence if she ever had a boy in her room, as Tracey had reminded her, but it wasn't as though she ever actually  _intended_  to have a boy in her room, anyway.

School was a place for studies, she had repeatedly reminded herself throughout the years. She'd avoided ever having a boyfriend, and saw being romantically involved at this time as nothing but a distraction from her grades. The reality was, her first five years at Hogwarts had been impressively boring, and she was proud about that. It took self-discipline to be as skilled of a witch as she was... even if that did only make her amount to the  _second_  best in their year. Point being betrayal of her own rules helped add to her embarrassment. Not only had she betrayed her family and house, she'd betrayed  _herself_. And the fact she had chosen the worst possible person imaginable to direct those urges at... definitely didn't help.

Even the fact that he was a Gryffindor and she was a Slytherin, though she didn't like to admit it, was embarrassing.

It was a commonly accepted fact between the Slytherins that Gryffindor's were mindless jockeys, ready to cheer at anything. Slytherin was the house of cunning, and Gryffindor was the house of mindless bravery. Daphne never was one for the house versus house propaganda, but she admitted she could see where the stereotype of the idiot Gryffindor came from. She was almost disappointed in herself for being disappointed in herself… if that made sense.

She quickly slipped into her silver slippers and made her way over to the bathroom.

Once the detention was over tonight, she would never, ever, have to speak to him  _ever_  again. That was the plan, and she was going to stick to it.

Right?

A nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach made itself known.

Truth be told, during her endless sleepless night, Daphne had created backup plan… A fantasy, more like. The overthinking of an emotional teenage girl. It was nothing, but…

What if she didn't get her closure? He'd been the only thing on her mind these past few days, anything before him seemed like a dream. She'd never been this interested in another human being before, even if the circumstance was a negative one.

Engaging with him like she'd done had ignited something inside her, and she knew for the good of her social life, grades and mental health that she had to put it back to rest. But... Daphne had a back-up plan, and she didn't entirely trust herself not to do it.

* * *

Harry had thought things had been getting better. Harry had been wrong.

During breakfast he hadn't even make it to his seat before Ginny was on him. She'd began to notice his absence, and although he was able to play it off rather convincingly, telling her that he'd just been very stressed of late, the fact she'd noticed something was wrong worried him.

He felt bad lying to her.

He felt worse than bad, he felt immoral.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he left like he'd stepped off a bridge. Anxiety crushing in around him felt like a rapid torrent, throwing him from side to side. It frightened him that he was able to do it so convincingly. He lied to girlfriend's face to protect himself, and he was  _good_  at it. What did that make him?

Despite their confrontation only being brief, it had shook Harry for the rest of the day.

He only prayed once he had talked things through with Daphne - _properly_  this time- these feelings would stop. If they didn't, and he had to live with thinking of her every second of every day… he didn't know he could. Just look at him! She was the first thing that he thought of when he woke up and the last thing to go through his head before he went to bed. A week ago he'd never said anything to Daphne that wasn't an insult, and now he was an anxiety-ridden wreck because of her.

Sooner or later, Harry's time avoiding human contact was up, and it was time to do his detention.

* * *

"Oh for meRLIN'S SAKE" Daphne launched herself off her bed, noticing the time.

She always spent her Sunday nights studying in her room, but this time it had gotten a little out of hand. She was five minutes late for her detention.

With  _him._

She grimaced. Diving for her copy the relevent potions textbook, the Slytherin girl quickly began to dress herself.

What was he  _doing_  to her?

She hated him.

She didn't hate him.

She did, but she didn't.

He was guilty of nothing that she wasn't.

Which was enough reason to hate him, but don't get her wrong, she hated herself too. However she just couldn't find it in herself to place the blame solely on him… maybe if she could this would all be easier on her.

Realistically, she knew the way tonight was going to go. Her plan to breeze through the detentions without talking had done nothing to settle her fears or anxieties. They were going to have to talk about this, and talk about it  _properly_. She'd spent most of her hours today thinking of the different ways tonight could go, and safe to say she had considered them  _all_. Options ranging from them quietly agreeing to never see each other again to him murdering her and hiding her body in the Chamber of Secrets. Her favorite (and most hope for) option was the two of them having a nice long chat about the incident, then agree to laugh about it, forget and move on.

She didn't know how likely that option was, but there was only one way to find out.

Throwing on her black cloak, she quickly rushed out the door.

* * *

"I'm here. My apologizes I'm late."

Daphne rounded a corner and came to a stop in front of Professor Snape and Harry. Again, she wore her recognizable uniform, but this time she had at least made the effort to look nice and had scribbled her face in makeup… a bit rushed, if Harry said so himself. Not that you could tell, Daphne was one of those girls born with a naturally symmetrical face, meaning makeup would only improve her already occurring beauty.

Unfortunately for Harry, he didn't have time to divert his gaze before she caught him staring. Her face turned into a half-scowl, half-blush, and she looked away.

"I got distracted reading. It won't happen again, Professor," she apologized.

Snape scowled.

"Let's not hope it's the  _only_  thing that won't happen again."

After a second, he caught onto his poor wording.

" _The detentions_ , I mean," Snape mumbled. "…both of you inside."

The two students quickly obeyed and entered the room, again doing their best to avoid eye contact with one another. They quickly made their way over to their scorch-marked cauldron and began picking up random objects, attempting to look busy.

"I hope this doesn't mean you think you can get away with being late to lessons, Miss. Greengrass," Snape scowled, "I'll be leaving you both now. I shall return in half an hour. No  _funny_  business."

The second the door swung to a close, the two put down their equipment and turned to each other. The synchronicity between the two made them almost look like a mirror had been placed between them. Harry opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as Daphne opened hers. Seeing that he wanted to speak, she too quickly closed it again. He opened his mouth again, but no words came out.

At the sight of the boy's goldfish impression, a slight smirk made its way to Daphne's lips.

Finally he managed to get out, "I know you might not want to, but I  _really_  need to talk about Friday night."

Daphne swallowed and nodded.

"You're correct. I did attempt to forget about it and move on, but it's not happening. We need to discuss this."

Harry's eyes sunk to the floor as he nodded.

"Well… glad you agree."

Daphne perked up.

"I actually, erm… have a theory, to what happened."

Harry raised his eyebrow.

Daphne took his cue and began her explanation.

"W-well I was reading up on it... That's what I spent most of yesterday in the library doing, actually. The potion that we're making," she gestured to their shared cauldron, "… is supposed to stimulate infatuation. Kissing Concoction, but in it's rawest form. It's like a semi-love potion… meant to give people the confidence to do what they might be too shy to do otherwise…"

She waited for Harry to interject, but he remained silent, watching her with cautious eyes. She continue.

"But it can't make you act on urges that aren't  _there_ …" she blushed, "it's designed as a little push in the right… or in our case,  _wrong_  direction. When you bumped into me, I dropped too much Adders Fork in and… well, I don't know what exactly it did, but we changed the potion. Enthused it."

Harry glanced over at the cauldron.

"Adders Fork affects our personal drive," she carried on. "It's used to give artists and writers a creative muse. It drives them to be more productive, and makes them more enthusiastic about something than they actually are… When we added too much, it changed the potion so it didn't just give us courage, it…" she winced, "made what we wanted absolutely irresistible. And in our case, we clearly have a simultaneous attraction towards each other, so we… basically made a lust potion."

Harry looked back at her, a thousand emotions written on his face.

Daphne blushed and looked away.

Explaining that had been so much smoother in her head. But how else could she word  _"you thought I was fit that's why the potion made you do that"_  in a dignified way?

Looking up, she spied him looking at his shoes, and could see his cheeks glowing bright from here. It was almost cute. Like a child who just received a valentines day card.

"It's embarrassing, I realize, but…"

"You're really attracted to me?" Harry asked, looking up suddenly.

Daphne's expression fell.

Everything she just said… and  _that_  was what he heard?

Merlin's Beard, he really was a Gryffindor.

She let out the smallest snort.

Harry's face flashed with confusion.

"What?"

"You're an idiot," she shook her head, continuing to laugh.

Harry's blushed hardened.

Her laugh was unusually high pitched and girly for a woman who went by the nickname The Ice Queen. He would later deny, even to himself, but it was almost kind of cute.

"Look, Potter," Daphne sighed, "I'm gonna explain something to you."

She brushed her hair to one side.

"Despite what you may have heard, I'm not a  _complete_  social outcast. I have just as much feelings and urges as anyone else has. And I… like a lot of other people… like to live dangerously sometimes. Obviously not on the same level as  _you_ … But I work hard to seem professionalism when I'm around others, my school life and how many see me is important to me. So… it makes sense that I'd be more attracted to  _you_  than I would, say a boy in my own class."

Harry squinted.

What was she saying? That Ice Queen thing was all a lie?

He noted that her vocabulary had suddenly taken a drastic turn from everything he'd heard out of her before. Was she faking her entire persona?

"What are you saying?"

Daphne silently groaned at him.

"I kinda… yanno…  _get off_ … on misbehaving sometimes. It's like a kink, it's the adrenaline rush.  _That's_  why the potion made me do what I did on Friday… If you  _must_  know, I have a closet thing for danger and the potion made that possible."

"So you're not attracted to me?"

Daphne noticed a slight deflate in his shoulders.

Then, something happened.

Deep inside her a spark leaped to life. It was a small, glowing warmth. Like the hot fuzziness you get in the pit of your stomach when when alcohol enters your system, or the goose bumps from stepping in a hot shower.

She didn't know what the feeling was, but she liked it, and decided rolled with it.

"I didn't say  _that_ …"

Harry looked up, confused.

Daphne was grinning at him.

After a moment's hesitation, the corner of his mouth perked up, and he pulled a sly grin of his own.

This moment hung in the air for a second, before a realization dawn on them both. Their faces suddenly dropped and the two turned away in unison.

What the hell was she doing!?

Did she just tease him?

Where the  _hell_  did that come from?

And why did it make her feel like…  _that_?

"Listen, Potter, erm…  _Harry_ …" she spoke his name for the first time. "Keep an open mind with this… okay?"

Harry's attention turned back to her at the mention of his name.

"I wasn't done… this is… where things get  _interesting…_ "

Daphne's Slytherin tendencies wormed their way to surface as she cracked a smile.

"And open mind, remember?" she laughed through her increasing nerves. "I think… well, you obviously had the same reaction as me to the potion, which should mean something. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blind to my physical attributes. I'm a Fifth Year and I wear a D-cup, for Merlin sake. But the potion isn't  _that_  strong... it couldn't have made you do something against your will. So some part of you was obviously on the same level as me. I think you might know what I'm talking about when I describe how it feels?"

Daphne pursed her lips and took an unintentional step closer.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but, you've felt it too, haven't you? The Gryffindor Golden Boy… I bet that's a lot of expectations to live up to. It must feel great when you don't have that legacy to try and maintain. I think that maybe… you like to rebel a little, too?"

Harry stared at her, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"I… I don't…" It took a second for him to respond, but when he shook his head, disgust written across his face. "I don't know what you're trying to say. I hate having my responsibility. Not a day goes by when I don't wish I couldn't just be normal."

"Mmmhmm," Daphne nodded. "I know that feeling. Top student here with a facade she has to play every day. And I know it feels pretty good the few occasions I get to say F-You to that responsibility, am I right?"

A grimace made it's way to Harry's face. He wanted to fight off everything she was saying, but at the same time, he couldn't deny she was getting into his head.

"I don't get to  _just_  say no to it."

"But if you could?"

"I  _can't_."

"But if you  _could_? You still haven't said I'm wrong."

"You're  _wrong_."

"Then why do you always rebel against what people want you to do?"

Harry's eyebrows hit the ceiling, but she continued before he had chance to speak.

"I'm just saying, you know. Last year, during the Triwizard tournament you put your name in the cup,  _despite_  it being against the law. And a few years ago with the Chamber of Secrets, you knew where the chamber was… you could have just gotten a teacher? But  _you_  decided to go down. Or the time with the troll in our first year?"

"Those are wrong!" he snapped. "You don't understand anything that happened, I had good reason for doing all of those things!"

Daphne bit her lip.

"The same way I'm sure you had a  _great_  reason for talking to that snake during the dueling club in second year. Why  _did_  you go after the Philosophers stone anyway? It's not like it was any of your business."

Harry shook his head gently. It was more of an attempt to shake her words from his ears than to genuinely retort her.

"They were... all a long time ago. I've changed since then."

"But am I wrong?" she asked sincerely. "Maybe I  _do_  just have the wrong end of the stick, but full disclosure, can you honestly tell me you don't get the smallest amount of satisfaction from being Harry 'freakin Potter?"

Harry locked eyes with her and swallowed.

" _What_  are you even getting at?"

Daphne repressed the urge to smirk

His lack of answer was an answer in itself.

She took a breath and continued.

"I've been blaming myself for what happened, when really, we were fools not to realizing it sooner. We're a boy and a girl, separated by an entire war, who both get off on secretly disobeying what the nasty grown ups tell us to do. Is it  _really_  that surprising the potion made us do what we did? We're borderline fetish material for each other."

Harry blessed at her use of the word. But neither the less, she could still see the cogs working behind his head.

"Look, Daphne... I don't know what you're saying, but... I'm in a relationship… and I've been treated like a  _god_  by the Weasleys, so even if I wasn't…" he struggled. "Betraying them like that, would be… that  _would_  be like…"

"Living dangerously?"

Daphne took a conscious step closer, hanging on his words. The space between them was now nearly sealed.

He suddenly found it very difficult to drag his eyes away from hers.

"Yeah," he mumbled.

"I didn't hear a no in there?"

"Are you… are you asking me... if I want... to have an  _affair_ with you?"

Daphne swallowed, her breath merely whisper.

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. But... I just haven't been able to get you out of my head. I hate you, but… I also don't. Just tell me to piss off, please. You'll make this whole thing a lot easier. "

Harry wanted to deny what he was hearing.

But was making a brilliant case for her point. She had woken up something inside him he didn't even know lived there. Maybe the years living with and being repressed by the Dursleys had made him a closet rebel? It's not like he went out of his way to seek danger, but... and even if he  _did_ , there was a sizable difference between living dangerously and just being a flat-out horrible person. He was in a relationship, for god sake. He should push Daphne away from him right now for even thinking that little of him.

But on the other hand, she was completely right in everything else she'd been saying. She'd been clogging up his mind way more than Ginny ever had. But Ginny was his  _girlfriend!_  Harry wasn't a cheat.

So why hadn't he pushed her away?

"Why... why are you doing this?"

There was a mournfulness in his voice.

"Because... I like you… A lot, I guess. Trust me," she laughed, "it's news to me as well."

He gently shook his head. There words had become less than whispers now.

"This is wrong..."

"It's only wrong if people find out..."

"You think they wouldn't?"

Daphne nodded slowly.

"A secret we'd take…" she bit her lip, "…to our graves. Nobody would  _ever_  know. To Ginny Weasley, she wouldn't even notice the difference."

Her heart was almost in her mouth. Harry puffed out a small breath of air. It was intended as a laugh, but he wasn't able to muster the strength. And then it happened. Both of them would late swear it was the other who instigated it, but the truth was, they both wanted it.

The space between them sealed.

It wasn't as rough as the first time. It was gentle, but passionate. There was heat between the two. Ginny, as much as Harry supposedly loved her, was boring. She was safe. There was no spark when they kissed. Or there was... but it wasn't like this.

And Daphne...? She'd stayed clear of boys and physical urges all her life. The long lonely nights were nothing a cold shower and a run couldn't fix. She had her technical first kiss a few nights prior, but this was the one she'd be giving that title to.

Daphne moaned gently into Harry's mouth, and pulled her arms up around his neck. Harry responded the kiss.

This was wrong. It was so wrong. Neither of them would argue against that. It was wrong, and they were betraying everything they had been taught.

But  _Merlin's Beard_  did it feel right.

"Stop."

Daphne suddenly tore back from the kiss and pushed him from her.

"What's wrong?"

The words had barely left his mouth before he caught on.

Quickly, Harry dived away from the girl and snatched up potion vials. Daphne did the same, and with a vial in one hand and book in the other, tried to frame herself as looking mid-action.

The dungeon door swung open and Professor Snape strolled in. He glanced over Harry and Daphne as he approached their cauldron. As his head leaned down into the container, the two students silently cursed themselves for not leaving their romantic act until after they finished the potion.

"It hardly looks like you have hardly done anything... I'd be annoyed, but it's very difficult for my expectations to drop any lower. Fifty points from Gryffindor and Slytherin," Snape said coldly, leaning over their potion.

He straightened up and stared down at the two in his best condescending scowl.

"I'd say that is warrant of another detention, but frankly I doubt that if you haven't caught the hang of it now, that you ever will.  _That_ … and I don't want to waste another one of my evenings on the pair of you."

With a sudden flick of Snape's wand, the dungeon door leaped open, causing the two students to jump.

"Out of my sight. Potter? I expected this from. But I'm very disappointed in you, Miss Greengrass. I expected more from the number-two-witch."

The two didn't have to be told twice. They both quickly made their way out of the classroom and out into the corridor beyond, pulling the door closed tightly behind them. After a quick check to see that they were alone, they turned to each other.

"That was close."

"Yeah…" Harry half smiled, half sighed. "He'd have probably found some way to send me to Azkaban."

Daphne smirked at his words.

After that, a heavy silence took over the corridor.

What to even say?

The silence hung heavy in the air, and the two found themselves unable to make eye contact.

"So… I'm sorry, where does that leave us?" Harry asked.

"What were those two character's from the muggle playwright? Romeo and Juliet?" Daphne suggested, trying to lighten the mood.

Harry shrugged.

"That's probably not the best comparison, given the ending of it."

Daphne shrugged.

"I haven't read it."

Harry scratched the back of his head.

"But, really... What do we do now?"

"Do you even know what an affair  _is,_  Potter?"

He squinted.

"So we  _are_ doing that?" he asked cautiously.

"I told you, I don't know…" she gave a tired sigh, "this is confusing for me too. But… I just bared my heart to you in there, and not once did you stop me, so… I guess whatever we're doing, we're in it together."

Harry didn't argue, but she could tell he wanted to. It pained her to feel like she was forcing him into anything. She traced her foot along the cobbled floor of the dungeon, unsure.

"I think we should meet up again sometime," she suggested. "Just to discuss things. For all that was said in there... we didn't actually come out with any kind of resolution. I think I speak for us both when I say I'd like some kind of closure."

Harry perked an eyebrow.

"To have a  _discussion_?"

Daphne smirked.

"Yeah,  _just_  to have a discussion."

Her tone was enough of an indication to make Harry blush.

"There's the Shrieking Shack?" he said suddenly, trying to move the conversation along. "I know a secret passageway under the Whomping Willow. It's isolated, nobody goes there?"

Daphne sneered.

"That's like an hours journey either way. And it's dangerous to try it with how strict Umbridge is being, I seriously wouldn't want to be caught out after hours. Is there anywhere else?"

Harry thought for a moment.

"Forbidden Forest?"

"Same problems… in fact, probably worse," Daphne mused. "Suppose we could just find some broom cupboard?"

Harry winced.

"It'd look suspicious if one of us randomly went into a broom cupboard with other people around, surely," Then Harry's eyes perked up. "Actually, I've got an idea."

"What?"

"You'll see, just meet me tomorrow after lessons on the Seventh Floor corridor, near the Divination staircase."

Daphne pursed her lips. She didn't exactly trust him yet, but then again, he had enough dirt on her to ruin her social life already, she decided to roll with it.

"If you insist," she shrugged.

In a traditional conversation, this would be the point where the two hug before going their separate ways. But this wasn't a normal conversation, and it went with a noticeable lack of a hug.

"You know what will happen if we get caught, don't you?" Harry asked rather solemnly.

Daphne nodded her head. Her voice was somber.

"I have a pretty good idea."

With that daunting prospect dangling over head, Harry turned to make his leave. But then an impulse in him rose, and he suddenly found himself turning back to her.

"I have a question," he blurted out.

Daphne frowned.

"Yes?"

"Are you human?"

Daphne's eyebrows shot into her hairline.

"What makes you say  _that_?"

"I was just…  _wondering_ ," Harry let out a stifled laugh. "You never can tell with magic."

Daphne huffed.

" _Charming_."


	4. Room of Secrets

Daphne awoke to the sound of her name being called. It took a brief second for her eyes to adjust to the brightness, before seeing that she was alone in her dormitory room. With a groan, she pulled the white blanket off her semi naked body and sat up. It took a moment before the memories of the previous night came flooding back.

"Oh, Merlin's Beard."

She'd done it again.

What was  _wrong_  with her? Was he really that cute that in that exact moment she decided to sacrifice all her morals, just to satisfy some schoolgirl fantasy she'd been having?

Yes! That was exactly what she'd done! And now she was literally sleeping with the enemy.

Well, not literally, as they hadn't actually made it any further than second base... But, still.

Daphne was raised in a strict and repressed household. She'd been able to find a good balance between her daddy issues and her want to be the best at whatever chosen subject she picked. This could ruin everything. The phrase _'don't shit where you eat'_  came to mind.

Daphne slid on her fluffy white slippers and made her way down the end of her bed, where she began unhanging her uniform.

"Greengrass, hurry up!" A familiar voice called her.

"I'm coming, Draco!" Daphne shouted, throwing on her white shirt.

"You know how mental that Sybill cow goes if you're late," he laughed, "she'll predict your father's death again!"

"Oh piss off,I'm coming," Daphne snapped under her breath.

"We're gonna go without you!" Malfoy shouted.

* * *

" _Where is she?"_

Harry took another glimpse around the Divination classroom.

He still couldn't make his mind up if he felt incredibly guilty about last night's actions, or incredibly excited. Eventually, he decided on both.

She had really thrown him through a loop last night. Harry had lost a lot in his life, and still had extremely high expectations to fill, that much was definitely true.

Did she have a point? Maybe he had earned the right to be selfish?

"Harry mate, you okay?" Ron whispered.

Harry was brought out of his trance by his ginger haired friend. It took him a moment to decipher what Ron had just said.

"What? Oh yeah, fine. Brilliant."

"You sure? You seem a bit, well… iffy."

"I'm fine, just, got a lot on my plate at the moment."

"Witches and Wizards who are born with the rare natural gift for prophecy prediction are known as Seers! I, am a perfect example of this children," Professor Trelawney said, pointing to herself. "Non-Seers can  _learn_  divination methods, but their success can always vary. Now, some learned wizards and witches seem to regard the practice of divination with skepticism, these people are most commonly known as  _fools_! The main ways of predicting the future are Astrology, the observation of the movements of the planets and stars, Crystal-gazing, the use of looking into a crystal ball, and Palmistry, a foolish practice if I say so myself, in which somebody can read the length of another person's life span by reading the lines on a person's palm... Others can include- Oh! I didn't think you would be joining us, Miss. Greengrass, Mr. Malfoy."

Harry span around to see a pair of blondes stood in the Divination glass room doorway. Not very subtly, he also realized.

He made a mental note to chill out.

"Not very good at telling the future then, are you?" Malfoy scoffed, earning him a scattered laughter throughout the class. Beside him Daphne quietly apologized and slowly followed her fellow Slytherin to their table.

"Where was I, oh yes? Others can include, Cartomancy, Dream interpretation, Tessomancy and-" The Professor stopped.

She froze on the spot for a few seconds, before slowly turning her back on her class. She stared down into the Crystal Ball behind her, watching the mist trapped inside glow and change shape. She pushed her glasses further up her nose and bent down, carefully examining the mist. The class fell silent, waiting for their teacher to say something. Finally she stood up and turned to her class, and one student in particular.

The busy haired Professor turned and stared at Daphne, a shocked expression on her face.

A chill went down Harry's spine.

" _Don't do it."_

Daphne turned to him.

Her look spoke a thousand words.

"Heptomology!" the Professor resumed, as if nothing had happened. "Attempting to convince other Muggles that they also have the powers of a Seer..."

Daphne pulled out a piece of parchment and scribbled a down a quick note, before folding it in half and casting the disillusion charm on it. She then subtly pulled her wand out from her sleeve and began to make the invisible parchment float over to Harry's table. The parchment flew over the class unnoticed, landing on Harry's table with a light tab.

Harry quickly cancelled the charm and opened the letter.

_"Are we still on for tonight?"_

Harry quickly pulled out his quill and scrawled down his reply, and then sent the parchment back over. Daphne snatched the note out of the air and unfolded it.

" _Yes, but my friends are getting suspicious that something is wrong."_

Daphne quickly wrote her response and sent it back.

_"I don't think any of mine are suspect. But Trelawny may be a problem."_

_"Try and keep it that way. We'll think of something."_

* * *

The next lessons of the day went through as boring as any other day. Harry and Daphne only had one other class together, Charms. However due to Professor Flitwicks anti-charm spell over the room, the most contact Harry and Daphne could get in was an occasional glance.

When the time finally came, the last lesson of the day finished, and Harry began making his way up to the Seventh Floor

Harry reached the right corridor, all to do now was wait for Daphne-

"Potter!" Daphne whispered, stepping out from behind a statue.

"Greengrass!" Harry whispered in a mocking tone, walking towards her.

The two reached each other, but then screeched to a halt. They'd both been going in automatically for a hug. Which was only natural, as the two had done barely anything but think about the other all day. But it was an odd thing; the two still didn't feel on hugging terms yet.

"Right, I've been here for five minutes now, and I haven't found any door or a secret passageway or anything. Where are we going?"

"Watch this," Harry said, turning to a picture-less wall.

Slowly and surely, a section of the blank wall began to grow darker. The section spread out, growing bigger. It soon began to take the shape of a door, one which reminded Daphne of the entrance to the Great Hall. Soon rusty, old-fashioned handles and golden frame around the door appeared. To anybody who hadn't seen its sudden appearance, it would look like it had been there for years.

Harry moved forwards.

"Welcome to the Room of Requirement," Harry said, and with a heave, pushed the door open.

The Room of Requirement had been transformed from its normal training ground state, into a large lounge area. The cold, hard, metal floor had been replaced with a soft white, cushioned carpet. The Hexagon shape rooms, broken glass walls and cracked windows had all been replaced with four freshly painted white walls, and the occasional petite potted plant. In the center of the room was a pearly white sofa. And to top it all off, the ceiling had been replaced with a big Honeymoon style ceiling mirror.

Daphne's amazement was cut short by her confusion.

"This isn't on any school map?"

"It's… erm, a secret thing. Try not to tell anyone. It's kind of the only place students can hide from Umbridge."

"It's cute. How many people know about it?"

"About twenty or so. Mostly Gryffindors, but some Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff."

"No Slytherins, then?"

"I mean… Would you trust your house to get on with everyone and keep it a secret?"

The two moved inside, and Daphne began to trace her way around the room, seemingly entirely forgetting about her original reasons for being here.

"Fair. This white is a incredibly dingy, I bet this place is a nightmare to clean for the house elfs."

"Yeah, sorry, I couldn't decide between gold and red, or green and gray."

She turned to him, squinted.

"You  _decorated_ the room?"

"Actually it changes completely to suit the needs of whoever finds it. It's in the name, the Room of Requirement, get it?"

Daphne pursed her lips, mulling over the information she was being fed.

"Mmhmm. Definitely isn't on any map I know of."

She dropped down onto the sofa, pulling her legs up beneath her. Harry sat himself down beside her, awkwardly distant.

"You can sit closer to me, I'm not going to bite."

Harry forced out a laugh, nodded and moved closer.

"Not unless you want me to."

He looked up at her in amusement.

"Was that a joke, Daphne Greengrass?"

Daphne shrugged, deadpanning.

"It's up to  _you_ if it was a joke or not."

Harry smirked. He fell silent, trying to think of a snarky comeback. When one didn't come to mind, he did the only other thing he could think of.

Lifting her chin up with his spare hand, Harry sealed the distance between them. She began to return it after a moment's hesitation. Before the two knew what was happening, Daphne was suddenly sat on his knee and their kiss was growing in intensity. She had both of her soft, yet cold hands unbuttoning Harry shirt, eager to get at his surprising pecks on the other side.

Daphne laughed playfully as she pulled away from Harry, ceasing her undressing at his midriff.

"What are we  _doing_?"

"Honestly… I try not to think about it," he half-joked.

Harry rubbed his scar.

"These past few days have messed me up so much, I don't know if I like you or… if I just like the  _idea_ of you, or what… Ginny has never taken up my life as much as you have. And I've known you  _days_."

"Lust is often confused with love," Daphne empathized. "But repressing lust merely turns it to obsession. If we quit each other cold turkey we'll never move past this."

"But doing this is can't be the only other alternative?"

Daphne sighed.

"We don't  _have_ to if you don't want to," her tone changed. "But you might find that by  _not_  doing we're just gonna make ourselves worse-off."

"It's not me that I'm thinking about."

"Maybe it should be?" she asked. "What is it that  _you_ want?"

Despite the serious nature of the conversation at hand, Harry couldn't help but let out a light chuckle.

It just occurred to him how rarely he heard that question.

"It's funny. A few days ago, despite everything that's going on, I actually thought I had pretty good control of my life. Now I've met you and I'm questioning if I  _ever_ had control of my life."

"Trust me, I know tha-"

"Helloooo? Harry?"

Like a bolt of lightning, the two separated. In a stroke of, frankly, genius, Harry's hand shot off and onto his fallen invisibility cloak. He dragged it closer and despite her protest, threw it over his very confused mistress. With a sudden release of pressure, his now invisible partner was thrown off him.

Harry sat up, ready to greet the intruder. He could make out the shape of a Gryffindor boy stood on the other side of the room, admiring one of the few large potted plants. He appeared not to have noticed them.

"Neville, over here!" Harry shouted.

Neville span round.

"Ah, alright mate! The door was left open so I just came in. Not interrupting anything, I am?"

"Oh no, nothing," Harry breathed in deep. "It's just nice to spend some time on your own you know?"

Harry gave him a big grin, putting his hands behind his head.

"Just nice to get some air!"

"O...kay," Neville shifted around unfortunately. "Anyway, erm, I think Ginny was looking for you. Well, actually she's got us all out looking for you. She's in the common room."

"Aww thanks Neville!" Harry sat forward. "How  _are_  you, mate?"

"Oh I'm fine thanks, just got back from Herbology. Professor Sprout has been helping grow my own Devil's snare. She reckons it would come in handy now that You-Know-Who's bac-"

"Oh, she has a good point! It probably will! Listen Neville, since Ginny's looking for me I'm gonna head off to find her… I'm going to need you to leave so I can close the room."

Harry's bright grin didn't falter, unnerving Neville.

"Oh yeah, no problem... I'll go wait outside, then."

"Actually I think it's better if you just went down to the common room. Let Ginny know I'm on my way!"

"Oh, yeah, alright."

Even Neville wasn't oblivious enough to not pick up on Harry's behavior. Whether he wasn't brave enough to question it, or simply didn't care, he didn't push forward.

The second the door had actually closed, Daphne reappeared. While Harry had kept Neville busy she had cunningly moved herself off into the corner to avoid detection.

"You idiot!"

"I probably should have closed the door, I hold my hands up."

"Not that. This!"

Daphne pulled at her collar, revealing pointing a small red mark on her neck. Harry stood up and got a better look. There was no disguising what it was.

"I barely touched you!"

"To clarify I  _was_ joking when I said about the biting, just so you know."

He moved past her joke, but would make mental joke to appreciate it later.

"Isn't there a spell you can use to get rid of it?"

"Only potions can get rid of them. And I'm certainly not going to Snape for help," Daphne said, scratching her neck.

"What about Madam Pomfrey?"

"She'd report it, I'm underage. It shouldn't be super hard to hide, anyway. But the when the point is we are trying to  _avoid_  people getting suspicious,  _t_ _his_ won't help," Daphne chuckled.

She looked at his invisibility cloak on the floor.

"That was some quick thinking, though," she admired.

Then, in a lesser tone, she nodded, "You better get going."

He nodded.

"I'll go see what Ginny wants. We can try and talk properly tomorrow, same place?"

"It's a date."

* * *

"Harry, there you are!" Ginny cheered.

Ginny was sat down on armchair in front of the fire, Crookshanks asleep at her feet. The common room was reasonably empty, only Ginny; Harry and Neville remained. Neville, who had apparently been stopped on his way up to the boys dormitory, was sat on the armchair opposite Ginny.

"What's up, Gin?"

"Please come sit down."

"Am I in trouble…?"

"No! No, no, but I just… Have you been avoiding me, lately?"

Harry paused mid-sitting. There was something about her straight-forward tone that didn't sit well with him.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, just Ron and Hermione have noticed somethings up, and now Neville finds you alone in the Room of Requirement? It's all just a bit… iffy, yanno?"

Harry glared at Neville, who sank deeper into his armchair.

"I've just been stressed… You-Know-Who is back, then I got expelled a few weeks ago and now the whole world thinks I'm a liar and a murderer. I've not been avoiding you I've just been… I've wanted some alone time, you know?"

Ginny stood, causing Crookshanks to flee across the room.

"You can  _talk_ to us about what's stressing you out, you know this. We're all here for you."

"I know that and I appreciate it, but…" Harry subconsciously took a step back from her, "that's just not really what I need right now."

"Isolating yourself isn't going to do anything but stress you out more, though?"

"Ginny I know you're trying to help, but you don't really know what I need. I do."

"You  _need_ someone to talk to."

He held his hands up.

"I don't  _want_ someone to talk to. I'm dealing with this my way."

"But we want to help you."

"And I  _appreciate_ that," Harry repeated, "but please… if, and when, I need someone to talk to, you guys will be the first ones I come to."

"You're my  _boyfriend_ Harry, I shouldn't just be on standby for when you decide you want attention."

"I'm just going to go now, if that's okay?" Neville asked sheepishly, already attempting to slide out of his chair.

"Goodnight, Neville!" The two said in unison.

"Ginny," He looked at her. "I wish I could be, but I really can't be the guy to hold you and tell you it's all okay anymore, because it's not. Voldemort is back now and he's coming. I've got a lot on my plate right now, you really can't be mad at me for being human."

"I didn't say I was  _mad_  at you," she sighed, "I said I was worried about you. Nowhere is safer than Hogwarts!"

Then, quieter, she mumbled, "honestly… it feels like you're just using it as an excuse to stay away from me..."

"Are you  _kidding_  me?" he snapped.

Ginny's face dropped behind her hair.

"I just don't think you're spending as much time with me as you could be," she said plainly.

Harry threw his arms into the air.

"I don't believe you just said that!"

Harry made to make an exit, but Ginny blocked him.

"Harry,  _please_ , don't run away from the problem."

"There is no problem! I'm not doing anything!

 _"Oh my god,"_  a new voice entered the room.

Ginny and Harry turned to see Ron in his pajamas at the front of the Boy's dormitory.

"I don't give a toss what's going on, but you two better shut the shit up before you get smacked the shit up. I'm  _trying_  to sleep."

"I'll join you," Harry said, pushing past Ginny.


	5. Family Ties

"Oi fatarse, wanna get breakfast?"

Daphne was suddenly awake. She'd gotten used to rude awakenings during her time in the Slytherin dormitories, but this was one she didn't mind. Her eyes floated over to her bedroom door.

Stood there was Tracey Davis.

The two shared a mother, and had been lifelong friends. Daphne and her younger sister Astoria were raised by their father, and whenever their mother had come to visit, Tracey was always with her. It was due to this forced time together the two had formed such a strong bond.

Daphne's father was the protective type. He was the one who superimposed the idealism onto her that it was more important for her to focus on her studies rather than making friends. So for a long time Tracey was the only friend Daphne had, not that she minded. Her father's idea that studying should come first had definitely rubbed off on her, and Tracey was well aware of that. Daphne had marmite-like attitude friendship, either it wasn't happening or you were in it one hundred and ten percent.

And these two were in it a hundred and ten percent.

If Daphne was considered the straight man in their pairing, then Tracey was the clown. She was loud, sarcastic and often made a point of sharing her unwanted opinions. They balanced each other well. While she would spend her time getting embarrassed by and trying to control Tracey, Tracey made her appreciate life to the fullest. Even appearance wise, the two were opposite ends of the spectrum. Daphne wore makeup, and took extra care in her appearance. Tracey was a tomboy, her hair was in a messy bob cut, and beyond that she put absolutely no effort into the way she looked.

With a heave, Daphne pulled herself into a sitting position. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned.

"My arse is not fat."

"Nah," Tracey said, strolling into her room. "It's _thick_ , and it's a good thing. Rare for white girls."

Daphne shook her head, ignoring Tracey's advances.

"What time is it?"

"Nine."

Today was a half day for the Slytherins, which meant lessons didn't start until twelve.

Daphne was glad, but for a different reason to the rest of her classmates.

After getting back to her dorm last night she'd lay awake for hour. The reality of what she was doing was only just beginning to sink in.

She was seeing Harry Potter.

That's it now, wasn't it? They had arranged to meet up to discuss terms and had just ended up snogging instead. Those seemed like pretty clear terms in her book.

Outside of the thrill she got from doing it behind the entire schools back, she was terrified of it. She'd lay awake hating herself last night, and just when she was positive she was about to call things off at the earliest opportunity, she suddenly remembered what it felt like when his lips touched hers.

And then she'd spend the next however many hours fawning over him again, then feel guilty about it.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

In fairness, Harry was a very attractive boy, and it was obvious he thought the same of her. And he respected her, which was entirely contrast to what Slytherin boys were like. True, there was a few stragglers who managed to treat women as something more than a pets, but the house was dominated by aggressive masculinity that was only after one thing.

She had wondered why no other women had gone for Harry before, and that's when it had occurred to her they had.

The thought of Ginny made Daphne uneasy. Honestly, the more she was thinking about it, that was what she was most stuck up on. Yeah it was scandalous what was going on between she and Harry, but they weren't actually doing anything wrong. But the fact he would be cheating on somebody to see her? Sure, Daphne liked danger, but Ginny didn't deserve to be cheated on.

"Earth to Blondie," Tracey said from across the room.

Daphne snapped out of her trance and turned to face her.

Tracey was wearing her uniform, though with a skirt that actually reached her knees, unlike her own. The only thing that massively stood out about her was a big brown woolly hat.

That bloody hat.

Tracey wore it everywhere. And she meant everywhere. Daphne asked her more than once what the fascination was that made her wear it day in and day out, to which Tracey had merely shrugged her off.

 _"I just like it,"_ she had said as though it was nothing.

That was illogical behavior to Daphne, but each to their own.

"How long have you been up?"

Tracey put down the makeup kit she was fiddling with and approached the bed. She sat on a corner of the mattress.

"About an hour. Had an early night night," she yawned and looked over Daphne. Her eyes widened.

"What's that?"

Tracey pointed to Daphne's neck.

She had entirely forgotten about the mark Harry had left on her neck. Her plan was to keep her outer robes on all day to hide it, but now Tracey was here and under the sheets she only wore her panties, leaving her no way to disguise it. She quickly snapped her neck to the side, hiding it from view.

"Nothing," she said too quickly.

Tracey's expression went from shocked, to surprised, to impressed, and then back to shocked again.

She smiled, her mouth forming an 'O' shape.

"Merlin's beard," she moved in closer. "Is that a love bite?"

"No."

Daphne stared at the wall, her head still hunched over her shoulders.

Tracey moved in closer again and tried to pull Daphne's head away from her shoulders. Daphne resisted the force, but Tracey was stronger. She accepted her fate and gave in, opening her collarbone up. Tracey let out a shocked laugh as she brushed Daphne's hair from her neck.

"Oh my god… Daphne!" She looked from the love bite, into Daphne's eyes, and then back to the love bite.

"I don't know what to say!"

Daphne was silent.

She had to play this cool.

"Actually, yes I do," Tracey began. "How big was he?"

"TRACEY!" Daphne half-yelped.

"Oh come ooooooonnn, I need to know!" Tracey grabbed her.

Daphne dragged her arm away.

"No! And I didn't sleep with anyone. So mind your own business."

"Daph," Tracey rolled her eyes. "Ice Queen Mode don't work on me."

Drat.

Now that was true.

When they started Hogwarts, Tracey had seen the transition Daphne went through. She saw the walls she put up, and it had initially caused the two girls a lot of arguing. But things eventually settled down when Tracey realized it was just an act Daphne putting on, and that the half-sister she had known all her life was still in there. Since then Tracey had gotten numb to it, the two rarely associated during lessons, mainly because Tracey knew she'd had a better conversation with a brick wall.

But during weekends and holidays? That's when the sister she knew and loved came out, and that was the real Daphne.

Thinking about it, it was likely Tracey's fault all this was happening with Harry in the first place.

Daphne's strict homelife caused her to become a goody two shoes, and as children it was always Tracey shouted at for misbehaving, not her. It was spending her life like this that made her realize how much she enjoyed taking a rare ride on the wild side. Tracey would convince her to do something irresponsible or out of character, and the resulting rush she got from it was orgasmic. Everybody held her in such high regard, if they discovered some of the stuff she had gotten up to in secret they'd be beyond shocked and disappointed. As would Daphne, she enjoyed being held in such high regard and the thought of losing that image would make her heart sink.

But the idea of risking it all? That was an adrenaline rush. That was what she got off on.

"Fine," she gave in. "Get out, let me get dressed and I'll tell you on our way up."

Tracey rolled her eyes.

"God you're such a girl," Tracey mocked, before clapping her hands together in a girly fashion. "But still, yay!"

She leapt off the bed and quickly dashed out of Daphne's room, closing the door behind her.

Daphne dropped her head into her hands.

Okay, she'd messed up.

Didn't mean she couldn't still salvage something though.

Tracey didn't know who gave her the love bite. She could create a story, about some guy from a different house she was starting to see. In fact if anything this would be an advantage! If Tracey was at least aware that Daphne was seeing somebody, then it would stop her getting suspicious at her disappearances. Otherwise knowing Tracey, she'd do something crazy and start her own investigating.

It wasn't ideal, as Daphne would have preferred if she could have kept this entirely between herself and Harry, but she could make it work.

She pulled the covers off and started to get dressed.

* * *

 

"Okay, spill." Tracey said excitedly.

The two girls exited the Slytherin common room and began making their way through the underground labyrinth. Despite it still being early in the morning, the charcoal walls of the dungeon blocked out any and all natural light, so the walls glowed orange from the flames of the hanging torches. It presented a cosy feeling of security, Daphne felt.

"Reeeally?" Daphne moaned. She knew there was no getting away with this, but she'd put off telling her as long as she could.

"Yeeeees! I want to know all the _delicious_ details," Tracey grinned.

Daphne rolled her eyes.

"There's no _delicious_ details."

Tracey grinned.

"That mark on your neck says otherwise."

Daphne frowned and pulled her outer cloak tighter around her neck.

"Oh come oooonn Daph, it's me. Who else are you going to tell?" she begged.

Daphne sighed.

"Fine but… Tracey, you _can't_ tell anybody."

Tracey nodded and gestured zipping her mouth shut.

"No, I'm serious," Daphne said flatly. "Don't tell anyone."

Tracey held her hands up.

"Hey, you know can trust me."

Daphne took a deep breath.

"I _am_ seeing somebody."

Tracy squealed and linked Daphne's arm in her own, pulling her close.

"The Ice Queen melteth!" she mocked.

"Go on then," she added. "Who is it?"

Daphne shook her head.

"I'm not telling you."

"Daaaappphhh."

"No, I'm not telling you."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"That's not a reason."

"Yes it is."

"Fine, don't tell me. I'll figure it out."

"Fine."

"Is it Blaise?"

Daphne turned to her.

"Ewww, no! Why'd you even think that?"

Tracey shrugged.

"He's tried it on with every other girl."

"And you think I'd go for somebody who does that?"

"Well I don't know, do I?" Tracey teased. "You've never been with somebody before."

"I'm still not telling you who he is," she turned away from her.

"So it _is_ a he?"

Daphne stopped in her tracks, frowning. She looked at Tracey.

" _Of course_ it's a he."

Tracey released her arm and held her hands up, defending herself.

"Hey, hey, I don't judge! I swing for both teams, you fancy yourself a bit of the ol' lipstick type, that's cool with me."

Daphne shot her a death glare.

"That's not the expression. And I'm not gay, Tracey."

Tracey shrugged.

"Never said you were. But for all I knew you _could_ be! You never talk about boys, and I've never seen you with anybody, so how would I have known? I have no evidence pointing either way! It's called the Schrodinger's effect, sweetheart."

Daphne rolled her eyes and continued walking.

"It's a guy I'm seeing. I'm not gay."

Tracey was quick to follow behind.

"Shame."

Daphne felt a sharp pain in her right buttock. Her eyebrows hit the ceiling and she gave Tracey another death glare, to which she just smiled harder in response.

"But come on, you can't not tell me who he is."

"Yes I can."

"No you can't."

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't."

" _Yes,_ I can."

"Daphne, you can't."

"Then what is it right now that I'm doing?"

"Delaying the inevitable. Who is it?"

Daphne's guise broke and her deadpan grew into a bright grin.

Tracey had no time for Daphne's cold attitude, and she knew just how to get through to her.

"Fineee," she laughed. "I'm still not telling you, BUT I promise if it becomes properly serious then I will. Okay?"

Tracey pulled a puppy dog face.

"I guess I can live with that."

"Good," Daphne giggled.

"Soooo… how long have you been seeing each other?" Tracey asked.

Daphne glared at her.

"What? I'm not asking who it is, I'm just asking how long you've been seeing him," she said innocently.

Daphne smiled and shook her head. "About three days… maybe five... I'm not even sure if we're officially together."

"Ahhh… oh," Tracey nodded, a hint of surprise in her tone. "Things must be moving pretty quickly then for… er…"

She gestured again towards Daphne's neck.

Daphne raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing just… neck eating territory, already? He must be a… pretty great guy," she shrugged.

"Oh it's not that bad. It's not like I've slept with him," Daphne stated.

Tracey raised an eyebrow.

"I haven't!" Daphne stressed.

Now that she thought about it though, Tracey had a good point. She'd only been seeing Harry three days, and a week ago they had barely spoken to each other. And yet on the three times the two had properly spent time together, they had gotten fairly intimate. What did that make Daphne? True it wasn't entirely her fault, their first time 'together' was due to the effects of their accidental potion, but the other two times?

It had felt so right in the moment... but during those times the big picture had never occurred to her.

Did she really want to lose her virginity as part of a dirty love affair?

She always considered herself to be a "waiting-till-marriage" kind of girl, which was yet another thing that she felt made her superior to the other Slytherin's. Giving into her urges and losing her virginity to her first boyfriend would be bad enough… But a boyfriend she'd been seeing less than a week? She'd be no better than any of the other girls in her house. Living dangerously was one thing, but this was something that was important to her, something that couldn't be reversed. But if they weren't together for physical attraction, what were they seeing each other for?

Daphne made a mental note to bring this up to Harry tonight. Now was not the time to be having such deep thoughts.

The two girls rounded a corner and began climbing a spiraling staircase. The higher up they went the brighter the walls got and the more spaced out from each other the hanging torches became.

"So does your father know?" Tracey asked, climbing the stairs.

"No," Daphne began. "You know how he'd react. You're the only person I've told."

"Why so secretive?"

Daphne paused for a minute to think.

"You know what my life is like."

Tracey nodded.

"Ice Queen, got ya."

"It's not just that. I'd be being a bit of a hypocrite… you know how I-"

 _"Friends are just distraaaaaactions!"_ Tracey blurted out on her best Pansy Parkinson impression.

The two girls laughed.

"Yeah," Daphne giggled. "That."

"I still can't believe you said that," Tracey laughed.

"I said it _once_. And you were pissing me off," Daphne pointed at her friend.

The two reached the top of the stairs and were met with daylight. They stepped out of the corridor into the central hall. To the left of them was the main entrance to the courtyard and to the right, a large staircase. Directly opposite the dungeons was the entrance to the Great Hall. Students from various houses lounged about talking to each other and doing homework; being so close to everything made this area a common social spot. The two made their way towards it the Great Hall, avoiding eye contact with any other students.

"But I repeat, he must be a pretty nice guy for you to break your own rules," Tracey said casually.

"He is." Daphne smiled. "He's…"

Her mind was blank.

It only now occurred to her, she knew literally nothing about him.

Shit.

…

He had a hidden sexy room on the seventh floor?

"… Lovely. He's lovely."

Tracey laughed.

"Oh yeah. He sounds it."

Tracey didn't spot it, but Daphne's face was one of dread and terror.

What the hell had she gotten herself into?

* * *

 

"So what was going on with you and Ginny last night?" Ron asked, stuffing a fork full of bacon into his mouth.

Harry and Ron sat beside each other in the Great Hall, helping themselves to breakfast. Most students had already began lessons at this time, as a result the hall was surprisingly empty. Neville sat beside them, and further up the table sat a group of Gryffindor girls from the year below them. The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables were entirely empty, those two houses being in class this moment. A few Slytherins sat at the end of their houses table, also enjoying breakfast.

Harry finished chewing his food, swallowed and answered.

"Nothing serious," he shrugged the question off.

"It sounded serious, mate," Ron laughed.

Harry shrugged.

"No, it's… With everything going on I just need some time alone sometimes, you know? Clear my head," he said, returning his attention to his plate.

"Oh yeah? Nah, I get you," Ron nodded before taking a swig of his orange juice.

"And Ginny, she keeps wanting us to be doing coupley things… And I'm like, not to sound bad but, I don't really have time for that right now, considering," Harry gave a fake smile.

Ron nodded again.

"Mmhmm. She's always been like that, attention seeking. Fred and George reckon it's because Mum was so happy she finally had a girl, she spoiled her rotten."

Harry winced.

"I wouldn't say she's attention seeking, what she wants isn't… unreasonable. But you know… We did both acknowledge this wouldn't be a normal relationship when we got together."

Ron shrugged, "she was probably just saying that."

Harry looked at him. "You think?"

Ron nodded.

"Mate, she's fancied you since her first year, obviously she's going to say whatever she can to get with you."

Harry frowned.

"And you didn't think of mentioning this sooner?"

"It's never been an issue before," Ron laughed.

Harry's response was cut short by the sound of the Great Halls doors opening. He turned.

Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis strolled in. The two looked around briefly, before making their way over to the Slytherin table. They sat down a few seats away from the other socializing Slytherins and began picking their breakfast.

"Ron," Harry began. "What do we know about the Greengrasses?"

Ron looked up from his plate.

"They're fit," he laughed. "Why?"

Harry shrugged.

"When I had detention with Daphne over weekend, she didn't seem that bad."

Ron shook his head. "Nah mate, Greengrasses are bad news. Death Eaters. And now You-Know-Who's back they've all probably gone rushing back to him."

That was true. Harry did definitely recall seeing her father at the graveyard at the end of last year, he wasn't lying about that. At the time he hadn't recognized him, but when he'd gotten to Grimmauld Place he'd seen pictures of when Voldemort first rose to power, and Benedict Greengrass was among them.

"You reckon Daphne and Astoria are?" He asked.

"What, Death Eaters?" Ron continued chewing his food.

Harry nodded.

"I dunno man. Malfoy seems to be the prodigal son there, and I've never seen them hang around with him. They're in Slytherin though, practically makes them the junior candidates."

Harry nodded again.

"I'll tell you what though," Ron laughed. "If Daphne weren't a Slytherin, I fully would."

* * *

 

"Hey, sorry I'm late," Harry smiled, rounding a corner on the seventh floor.

Daphne was sat on a bench in the abandoned corridor, twirling her wand. She looked up and spotted him approaching her. Smiling, she stood up.

"Hey."

It was at the end of a long day, and the two were finally free. Harry had escaped Ron and Hermione, and Daphne had told Tracey she was off to meet up with her 'boyfriend'. And after double checking she wasn't following her, Daphne then made her way up to seventh floor where she'd been sat a full twenty minutes waiting for Harry to arrive.

"It took ages to get away from my friends, told them I was going to go study on my own to concentrate."

She pulled away from him and smiled.

"It's fine."

Harry took a double glance at her. Something wasn't right.

Her face was in deadpan mode, and her smile obviously forced. All the times they'd met, she'd even been beyond pissed off or extremely passionate. Now she just looked... unenthusiastic? Like she'd been dragged to a family party she didn't want to go to. It wasn't even just her infamous Ice Queen mode. There was emotion there, but it was sadness.

"Are you… okay?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

She gave him a sad smile and gestured towards the wall, "can we just head inside?"

"Er… yeah. Yeah, sure."

Harry quickly made his way over to the wall and began summoning it.

Something was definitely wrong. Though he'd gotten used to seeing her be blank and expressionless, actually seeing her upset was a new one for him.

"Maybe she's just had a rough day?" He thought to himself.

As the wall finished forming he turned to her. She was stood holding her own hands, watching him quietly. Even her body language was off, from what he'd seen of her she normally had no problem being confident in herself. Now she stood like a shy schoolgirl who'd been sent to the Headmasters office. He gestured towards the wall with his head.

"Come on in."

Harry pulled open the door and stepped inside, holding it open for her. She quickly entered, offering him a polite smile in return.

The room was once again in its chilled mode. The white walls and carpet almost gave it a heavenly glow. The two made their way over to the sofa and sat down, but not before Harry made sure the door was secure.

Daphne sat first, on the furthest corner of the sofa.

Spotting her obvious discomfort, Harry backed up a few inches before sitting.

"Sooo, er," he asked, unsure of how to proceed. "What's up?"

Daphne looked at him, and then started playing with her hands.

"Harry… I… we need to talk about something."

At her words, his heart sank.

Oh god.

They'd been together three days.

_Three days._

How the hell had he messed it up already?! What had he done?

"What is it?" He leaned in, dreading her response.

Daphne sighed, and looked around the room.

"Right… well…" she false started.

She hung her head.

"I don't think we thought this through properly."

Harry stared at her.

"What do you mean?"

What had happened to make her change her mind so suddenly?

"Because… Okay, bear with me," she began. "We've been together three days -including today- and every day we've just been kissing."

Harry was slowly growing uncomfortable.

Because he was raised literally under some stairs for most of his life, Harry never had 'the talk'. In fact, he'd only figured out how it worked by piecing together the bits and pieces he'd heard Ron's brothers talking about. Which they did a lot, in fairness.

Contrast to the rest of his life, this was one department where he was actually extremely sheltered. Sure he'd gathered the facts about it later on in life, but his in-exposure to the idea of romance and sexual relations for so long caused him to become very shy about it.

It was one of the things he valued about his and Daphne's relationship, they never spoke about it, just acted upon their instincts. It was a much easier approach to it, to just be going after what you want, rather than talking about it first and building it up too much. And so far as he knew, that was what this entire relationship was about, a selfish pass time they could use to enjoy themselves. So why was she so upset?

"Well… er… I'm sorry?" He asked, clearly misunderstanding her point.

She stared at him.

"I'm a virgin, Harry."

He raised an eyebrow.

That was… surprising? True he didn't know her personality that well, but if the way she dressed was any indication on who she was as a person… then yeah, that was definitely surprising.

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but she beat him to it.

"And…" she continued. "I don't want to lose my virginity as part of some dirty little affair. Especially with some guy I barely know."

Harry felt a sting of disappointment.

He sighed. He knew the direction this was heading in.

"So… you think we shouldn't do this?"

She was silent.

Daphne was an extremely attractive girl, and though he and she had never actually gotten to third base, he'd still enjoyed their build up to it. And even though it had only been for a short amount of time, he had enjoyed keeping this big secret. He hated himself for admitting it He'd gotten so used to actual danger, fearing for his life, it was nice to have something he knew wouldn't kill him in the long run. It was like the adrenaline rush from a rollercoaster; he knew he was fine, but that didn't stop him getting scared.

Thinking about it, it probably made sense that this was for the best. If anything that Ron had been saying during breakfast was true, the two wouldn't have been together long anyway.

 _"It was fun while it lasted,"_ he thought, hanging his head.

"No," she said.

Harry looked up. Their eyes met.

"I _do_ like what we have going… I know we've only been doing this for like I said, literally a couple of days, but… I've been really enjoying it. When it started I couldn't get you out of my head but now… I've been looking forward to seeing you, Harry," she smiled.

" _But_ ," she said more sternly.. "If we're going to keep this going I want it to be more than what it is."

He was confused for a moment, before clocking on to what she was saying.

She wanted an actual relationship, not a fun little secret between the two of them.

It… wasn't what he had signed up for.

But did that mean he didn't want it?

He thought about Ginny. When he'd first gotten together with her, for the first few weeks you could barely find the two separated. To anybody else, it would have been cute. But to Harry, he knew that it wasn't all it had seemed. During his time with her, he enjoyed it just fine. But he enjoyed it less than chasing the snitch in the middle of a storm. Less than late night banter in the boy's dorm. And less the times he'd spent with Daphne.

The reality was that after being starved of affection for so many years, with Ginny he was just happy to be receiving that type of attention. He compared that, to his time with Daphne.

Since the first detention they'd served together, he had done nothing but think about her. True it wasn't always good thoughts, but when he was thinking about her, it was like the entire world had been put on hold. The Dark Lord suddenly wasn't out there anymore. There suddenly wasn't a twisted dictator as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Outside of the repercussions with Ginny he'd been having, his life had gotten brighter since she came into it. He was no longer Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived. He just a normal teenage boy having girl trouble.

Everyday since they met, he would countdown how long it was until could see her. Again, it was true this wasn't always a good thing, but it was still something he had never felt with Ginny. Sure he'd liked her, but his feelings for her were nothing compared to what he felt towards Daphne now.

That's when he realized.

He never fancied Ginny back. At the time he thought he did, but he was in love with the idea of having a girlfriend, not his actual girlfriend. He was a man who'd just been given the cheap chocolate from a Christmas calendar, and told it was the nicest food on the planet. And then gotten the chance to try the nicest food on the planet… and there was no competition. This was why he was able to cheat on her. He wasn't a bad person, he just didn't like her back in that way.

His train of thought was interrupted.

"I understand if you don't want to…" Daphne began. "I know it's not what we agreed on, and I completely understand if you want to walk away. There won't be any hard feelings."

Harry gazed at her.

The mere action of doing so made his heart flutter.

He could see his reflection in her eyes. A lock of her beach blonde hair had freed itself from the rest of her ponytail, and rested beside her right eye. Even with the sad aura she was giving off, she was one of the most beautiful girls Harry had ever seen. He'd been too preoccupied with the anxieties of their affair until this point to realize it. She was a beautiful woman who wanted to have a relationship with him.

A beautiful woman who it was becoming ever more apparent, he had feelings for as well.

He nodded.

"Let's do it. Let's see each other properly."

A smile broke onto Daphne's face.

"Really?"

"Really," Harry's eyes lit up. "I feel the same way. Being with Ginny is nothing compared to what it's being like with you. Let's do this, properly."

The mood changed like a light switch.

Daphne let out a bright _"squeeee"_ and dove into him, pushing him onto his back. She climbed on top of him, forcing her arms under and buried her face into his chest. He wrapping his arms tightly, pulling her in closer, and lowering his head down to touch her own.

She was directly above his heart beat, and could no doubt hear it pounding.

Dopamine flushed into his system and he gave an honest-to goodness, entirely genuine smile

If this was the type of happiness he was supposed to be feeling in a relationship, then Ginny had been ripping him off.

"Thank you," she said, rubbing her face deeper into his chest.

He knew in reality, cheesy as it may be, he should be the one thanking her. Thanking her for helping him see the light.


	6. Love Your Enemies

"Question."

"Yes?"

"How'd you find this place?"

"Ohh.. It's er, Neville found it. We were trying to find somewhere we could use a a refuge against Umbridge when he walked past the wall outside."

"I've never read about it before... Which is weird. Even the Chamber of Secrets is mentioned in some texts, and that wasn't supposed to exist."

"Well, I guess Hogwarts just knows when it needs to lend a helping hand."

Daphne pretended to heave.

They both giggled.

Daphne snuggled deeper into Harry's chest. He smiled started rubbing her back. Since the two had decided to give having an actual relationship a try, the warm fuzzy feeling had yet to wear off.

Daphne looked up at Harry. Their eyes met. Slowly, the two kiss began kissing.

It was soft, but had purpose. There was an intention behind it, it had meaning, unlike before when their tongues just appeared to be battling for dominance. A warm fuzz spread through the twos bodies.

Daphne let out a gentle moan of pleasure into Harry's mouth.

He took that as his cue, and moved his hands down onto her waist. Gently he stroked her sides. Despite the few layers she had on, both her shirt, sweater and cloak, but she could still feel his hands on her diaphragm rising and lowering as she breathed. A rush of goosebumps swept her body.

Slowly she raised one of her hands and brought it down ontop own. She took his hand by the wrist, lifting it above his head. She pinned it against the arm of the sofa, which he didn't fight. She took this new angle as an advantage to deepen the kiss, introducing her tongue into his mouth.

The tips of their tongues gently rubbed one another, before beginning to explore their environments. The movements the two did, it was entirely similar and yet entirely different to the previous times they'd kissed. It was same tongues, same mouths, yet it felt entirely new and different. There was passion behind this kiss, not mere lust.

With the hand she had pinned down, she began snaking her hand into it his, interlacing their fingers. Then, she felt something.

She stopped. She pulled away from him, frowned and looked up.

"What's that?"

Daphne went to pull his hand down into her view, but Harry sat up suddenly, stopping her. She was now kneeling on top of him, a leg on each side of him. He hid his hand behind his back, shielding it from her view.

"Nothing," he said quickly.

"No, let me see," Daphne frowned, trying to move her head around his shoulder.

Harry leaned back again, still denying her access.

"It's nothing, honestly."

Despite the extreme proximity the two had to one another, it didn't seem to get in the way of their conversation.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Then you'll have no problem showing me."

Harry let out a silent sigh.

Gingerly he pulled both hands out from behind his back. He placed the innocent one on her right thigh, and presented his left hand to her. She took his hand by the wrists and pulled it up to her face, examining it closely.

She squinted. He had a scar trailing along the back of his right hand, it had gone red and purple from bruising. At the centre of it was some bright red wording.

"I must… not… tell lies?" she read out carefully.

She was silent for a second.

"Harry is this… Oh my god." Her voice shrank. She gently placed his hand between her two palms and held it.

"How did you get this?" she looked him in the eyes.

He pulled his hands loose from her grip and placed it down on her other thigh.

"Honestly, it's fine," he tried again.

"Harry," she told him sternly, raising her eyebrows

He took a steady breath.

"When I had detention with Umbridge at the start of the year... She made me do lines and… well, yeah."

He gestured to his hand.

Daphne looked shocked. She looked at him, to his hand, and back to him again.

"A Blood Quill?"

Harry shrugged. He never exactly caught the name of it, he was a bit preoccupied.

"Harry those are illegal. She can't make you do that. Have you told anybody?"

He shook his head.

"Just Ron and Hermione."

"Well you need to report this. I can't believe it. I'll have her job!" Daphne pushed herself backwards off him.

Harry swung his legs down off the sofa and sat up. She pushed herself into him, leaning her body against his left side. She retook his hand again, and resumed examining the scar.

"How did I not notice?! I knew she was a horrible teacher, but I didn't think she was that type of horrible," Daphne stroked his hand.

Harry gave her a sad smile. He lifted his bruised hand up and wrapped his arm around her. She took this sign of affection as a cue, and rested her head into his collarbone. His hand hung in front of her breasts, where she proceeded to continue examining it.

"I've had worse done?" he attempted making a joke.

"It's not funny," she told him. "Blood Quills have been illegal for thirty years. And even when they weren't, they were only used as extreme measures. Where did she even _get one_ from?"

Harry didn't answer, presuming her question to be rhetorical.

She turned to him, "are you okay?"

He offered her a smile.

"I'm fine, it only hurts when I properly mess with it."

She gave him an impressed look. "The way the magic works is it draws your blood out without breaking the sink, but the process still hurts. Surprised you aren't in more pain."

Harry laughed.

"Keep in mind since then I've had detention with you. Kind of had other things on my mind."

She nodded.

"I'll give you that one." She looked at him, "You had a lot of courage speaking to her like that. I'd have just nodded and gone quiet."

He shrugged, "she was really pissing me off."

Daphne nodded.

"About Cedric?"

"And Voldemort."

Daphne winced, the same way she did the first time he mentioned his name to her.

"Harry…" There was a harshness in her tone. " _Please_ don't say that name."

He looked at her, confusion riddled on his face.

"Why?"

"Because in m-"

She stopped herself.

Was she really about to admit to him her reason for not saying his name? Her reason was that her family were servants of the Dark Lord, and between their ranks speaking his name was a dishonorment.

Daphne never particularly cared for the extremism the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters showed, but she agreed with the basic ideas behind them. She was a proud pureblood. So many wizard families lacked pride in themselves, they'd allow their entire bloodline to be polluted just for one person's personal gain. They'd allow themselves to not only associate with Muggles, but to marry and breed with them. True, Daphne never had anything against Muggles -unlike some of the more extreme purebloods- but she certainly wasn't going to go having children with any of them.

Wizards were the superior species, but they were also a dying breed. By breeding with Muggles, yes they were continuing the magical bloodlines, but they were twisting them into a bastardisation, weaker and unpure. It was Daphne's opinion that what they needed to be doing was breeding amongst themselves, pure bloodlines marrying into pure bloodlines. It was the only way to keep their species going while still keeping it magical, not some magical/nonmagical hybrid.

But no, a lot of wizarding families these days didn't care for being pure, they were happy to be a mixture of whatever, whether it be pure, half or mudblood. There was no pride in what they were. Society's attitude towards it now was that it was acceptable to marry Muggles. And even if an entire pureblood wizard family all agreed against it, all it took was for one member to decide they were in love with a muggle, and that was it, the entire bloodline was corrupted.

Like a drop of ink in a cup of water; it'll never fully come out.

Her father was a strong believer in the idea of blood purity, and so when the Dark Lord had first risen and started a pureblood revolution, naturally he had joined in. And when he had returned, though she had previously denied it to Harry, her father was once again by the Dark Lord's side. He raised her to believe that the Dark Lords attempts at blood purity were for the greater good, and she understood that they were, but... True she didn't approve of his methods (aka, genocide), but the basic philosophy of the Death Eaters was survival of the fittest, which she agreed with.

Now he was back, her family was deep in the Death Eater circle.

Immediately after his return, her father had announced his plans for her to join the Death Eaters when she was of age. An idea that if she was perfectly honest, she wasn't entirely against. A lot of undercover Death Eaters worked in the Ministry, and as such they have formed ways of protecting their own. It was a secure job, it was something she could do in secret without it affecting her life. And she would be helping towards the greater good.

Admittedly she wasn't much looking forward to the idea of potentially killing somebody one day, but she always tried to ignore that part when thinking about it... Maybe she could just be the cook for the other Death Eaters when they had meetings, or something?

The reality was, although she and Harry were just messing around, under the surface they had completely conflicting opinions and were enemies.

And it was her duty to not help the enemy.

"It's… bad luck," she settled on.

"That's it?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Daphne eyed him.

"Yes."

Harry pursed his lips.

Daphne raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

Harry sat up, pulling away from her. He bit his lip and turned to her.

"Daphne, when we were arguing a few days ago… I wasn't just saying that. I did see your father when Voldemort returned. I know he's a Death Eater."

Daphne was silent.

She didn't know how to respond.

She knew that he knew this was true, but she had never expected it to factor into their relationship when they had first decided to have an affair.

How had the whole idea of the divide never occurred to her? The idea of them sneaking around behind their family and houses backs appealed to her… but the fact that they were _actually_ on opposite sides and held information that would be valuable to the other side had completely gone over her head. What if she had just admitted that her family were Death Eaters to him just then? True, Harry already knew, but his word alone meant nothing in the eyes of the Ministry, who still considered him a murder. Daphne giving a confession though? Even the undercover Death Eaters in the Ministry couldn't save them from that.

She swallowed. She needed to watch what she said from now on.

"Okay."

"Okay?" He asked.

"W-what else do you want me to say?" she tried.

Harry was silent for a minute. He looked away from her, watching the wall.

"Well… Malfoy's dad is a Death Eater… and he seems pretty sold on the idea of Malfoy becoming one. Sooo… I was thinking maybe…"

He went quiet.

Daphne joined in on his awkward silence.

He was asking her if she was going to join the Death Eaters. Really there was no point denying it to him, it was common knowledge that the Greengrasses had some affiliation in the dark arts. And he has seen first-hand her father serving the Dark Lord. But she could hardly flat out admit something like that to the poster boy for the opposing side of the war. Even if she _was_ dating him.

He knew the truth, but he was either denying it, or wanted to hear her say it herself.

"You think… I'm training to be a Death Eater?"

She heard him swallow. He nodded.

"I'm not," she lied.

He looked at her.

"I don't approve of their methods," she said coldly. "And I could if I wanted to, but I'm not doing. I know the Dark Lord is back, and yes my father serves him. But I have nothing to do with them. My father respects that and I know nothing of their operations."

Harry continued watching her.

Then he clocked a big grin and leaned back in, putting his arm over her again.

"Oh thank god, that got reeeally intense then," he laughed.

A wave of cold relief washed over her body as believed her lie. Her arms erupted into goosebumps.

"Hahaha, yeah," she nervously laughed.

"So how'd you make that work then?" He asked.

"Hmm?"

"Your dad being a Death Eater. Do you just not discuss it or ..?" He asked her.

"Oh, erm…. Yes," she caught on to what he meant. "Yeah, we just don't discuss it. Me and my sisters made it clear to him we want nothing to do with it, and he respects our decisions and leaves us out of it."

Harry nodded.

Then he frowned.

"I thought you only had one sister?"

She shook her head.

"Tracey Davis is my half-sister."

He raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

She nodded.

"We share the same mother… my mother and father were actually never together, mum was already seeing someone when he got her pregnant."

"I guess that's an urge that runs in the family then…" Harry muttered.

Daphne scowled at him.

"Shut up," she laughed. "But yeah, then she had Tracey with the other guy. She'd always come and visit my dad though, and she'd bring Tracey. That's why we're best friends."

"Ahhh…" Harry nodded. "So what's up with that hat of hers anyway?"

"Oh my god," Daphne laughed. "That hat."

Harry smiled and gave a confused frown.

"What?"

"Nothing." Daphne waved him off. "Just I've been asking myself that a lot as well. She just likes it, apparently. "

The two smiled and as that conversation began to die down, Daphne began wondering. Now that she had set up the delusion that she was nothing to do with the Dark Lord, that meant she so long as she watched what she said, she and Harry could thrive.

She could make this work. She was in control of the situation.

* * *

 

Snape sighed heavily and continued his trek through the dungeon corridors.

He'd had a long day of teaching, and after spending some time recuperating in the staff room, it was now time to return to his classroom to clean up for the night. Though it was customary for the students to clean out their cauldrons at the end of every lesson, this was something they constantly needed to be reminded about. And Snape was normally that stressed and annoyed by the end of the hour he was just happy to have them out of the room. This was very much the case with his lesson with Ravenclaw the previous hour, he'd shooed them all out so quickly he'd neglected to make sure they cleaned up after themselves.

He'd left soon after the last student did and quickly made his way up to staff room near the Great Hall. He'd wound down with a copy of the latest Daily Prophet, and even cheered himself up a bit reading the latest slander article on Potter. But now his break was up and he had to return to his classroom, unaware of what mess would be waiting for him.

As soon as he cleaned up he would be able to retire for the night, which was the thought that kept him going.

He soon enough reached the classroom in question, unhinged the lock and allowed himself in.

It wasn't nearly as bad as he had expected. Sure, a few books remained lain open on the desks, a few stools untucked away and a strange smell lingered in the air. But so far as he could see, each cauldron had been drained and ingredients put away. He silently thanked the Ravenclaw house, and made a mental note to award them some house point's next lesson. A generous act he would not normally have granted, but he felt their need to be tidy had just saved him an afternoons worth of chores.

Under normal circumstance he would have deemed the room tidy –as tidy as it ever was- and have retired for the night then and there. But alas, the new DADA insisted on nightly inspections of each classroom, to insure they were of the standard set by the Ministry. Snape gave it about an hour before Flitch would be here, scraping his filthy fingers across the top of the bookshelves.

"My classroom is in the dungeons of a five thousand year old castle, of course there is dust," he'd defended himself.

So some-what begrudgingly, Snape swept his way through the room, gathering books and pushing stools back to their right places. Again he appreciated the Ravenclaws almost stereotypical need to follow the rules. He'd had a long day and they left as little for him to do as possible. Of course if he was having things his way, he wouldn't have to do anything at all. But Snape was a realist, he learned to not expect things from those who receive nothing in return. And after all it was more than the usual houses did, Gryffindor and Slytherin often left behind ungodly messes.

His cleaning as interrupted by a metal clank, originated from something just along the lines of what he was thinking about.

He turned around and saw he'd accidentally backed into the side of a cauldron. There was pool of pink and red mush at the bottom of it. Only when he properly acknowledged it did he also realize this was the point of which the strange smell was coming from.

He groaned.

The previous week he had given Potter a detention with one of his own students, Daphne Greengrass. Greengrass was one of his favorites –if favorites meant being one that he didn't entirely hate. She always received good grades and caused him as little trouble as possible, something which he respected. And her father Benedict had been something of an acquaintance to him during Snape's time at Hogwarts.

It pained Snape to give his own students detention, but she had backed him into a corner.

And though it was no secret that Snape favored his own students above the rest, there was a line that he had to draw. The two had been partnered together during an exercise, somehow completely ballsing up the potion, and then decided to argue about it in front of the entire class. So he'd given them both detention and the opportunity to redo their potion to earn back their marks. He was getting quite lenient with these generous acts, he thought.

Of course though this was one generous act he wouldn't soon be repeating. He'd returned at the end of their first detention to find them both… he couldn't even bring himself to repeat the imagery.

He'd been outraged that not only one of his own students, but one of his favorite students, was involved with a Gryffindor, Harry Potter nonetheless!

As if crossing the house boundaries wasn't enough, Greengrass came from a long line of Death Eaters. Snape didn't know if this was some ruse on the Greengrasses half to get to the boy, or if there was actually something serious going on, but either way he didn't care.

All he knew was the last time a Slytherin and a Gryffindor had been romantically involved, it hadn't ended well. For either of them.

He'd kicked the two of them out immediately, and then took extra precautions to make sure what had happened wouldn't didn't happen again. Or at least, not in his presence. The two had returned the next two nights and completed their potion, barely. They would at best have been able to score an Acceptable, something which he would be lowering to a Troll for indecent behavior in the classroom. But at the end of their final detention, Snape didn't know if he had yet again neglected to remind them or if they had escaped before he had the chance to, but their cauldron remained undrained.

And again, it had been at the end of a long and stressful day, so Snape had left it how it was. It was tucked away in the corner of the classroom, there was no rush to clean it. There was normally more than enough cauldrons in the classrooms for all the students to use, it was only when he had double classes like he had done with Gryffindor and Slytherin they had to use the extras. And when Flitch had turned up demanding to know why there was a cauldron still left bubbling over night, Snape had merely waved him off and told him it was something that had to be left to brew.

That was days ago, and since then the liquid in the cauldron had turned to mush and began to smell.

He'd been given the free time, he might as well get it moved now rather than saving it for a day when he's tired and stressed.

He took out his wand and quickly evaporated the mush, it sizzling away into nothing. Then he made his way across the room, and took out a sponge from the cleaning cabinet and made his way back to the cauldron. He bent over, cast a water charm and began scrubbing.

It was then a pleasant scent made its appearance known.

Snape sniffed in, taking in the smell. Nostalgic imagines darted before his eyes.

Him attending Hogwarts in his youth.

His red-haired female companion.

The times the two had spent together.

And then for the first time in over ten years, he felt her presence again.

He quickly gasped, and pushed himself away from the cauldron.

The task they had been set was to create Kissing Concoction, a semi-form of love potion. It was one of the few legal love potions there was, being its effects were incredibly dull. It merely made it so if somebody took a fancy towards someone else, it would give them the courage to act upon their feelings. But what he had just smelled... that was not Kissing Concoction. The thickness of it, it left a taste in his mouth.

This was something a lot more powerful, something on the same level as Amortentia. Which explained why his nose was full of the scent of his sweethearts shampoo. This wasn't Amortentia, but it was something similar.

The realization began to dawn on him. Potter and Greengrass had messed up their potion. They failed at making a Kissing Concotion, but succeeded in making something different.

Something far different.

They must have been under the effect of whatever potion they had concocted, which was why he discovered them dry humping in the middle of his classroom.

They had been exposed to this potion multiple times. Who knows what kind of affect it would have on them?

Snape quickly drained the cauldron of whatever remained inside. Normally his student's love lives were something he would stay very far away from, but this was something that could potentially have very negative repercussions. What if Benedict was to learn of his daughter and the Potter boy? He would surely inform the Dark Lord, which could then present him with an opportunity. An opportunity which was not part of the Orders plan.

Snape would need to bring this to somebody's attention, and fast.


	7. Inquisitorial Squad

"What you so bloody cheerful about?" Ron asked, taking a seat beside Harry.

It was a Wednesday morning. They were only half way through the week, over a month away from the Christmas Holidays and still had a lesson with Umbridge this afternoon.

Harry had no reason to be happy, but nonetheless he was beaming.

His night with Daphne had gone swimmingly. The two had spent hours locked away in the Room of Requirement together, just talking. They had their first proper heart-to-heart, and it had completely changed the way he felt about her. Their entire affair was a dirty little secret the two were using as an adrenaline high. But now she was a person -a beautiful one- with a childhood, a personality, and a lot more layers than people thought. When they talked she showed a sense of humour, they discussed likes and dislikes, and they even toyed with the idea of what they should do for their next little meetup.

It had completely opened his eyes, and he realized he had no idea what he had been doing prior to it. They wanted to meet up because it was dirty… Harry was a virgin, and sexually also quite repressed. He never went out of his way to get himself laid- being sixteen he'd only recently discovered himself in that way, and now all of a sudden he was risking it all to be with some girl he hardly knew? He didn't know what had come over him, but he was glad he was out of whatever hormonal driven trance had overtaken him. Now he was out the other side, and he was dating Daphne Greengrass.

And damn was he lucky. He'd always thought she was attractive, but only last night it occurred to him how much.

Before he'd look at her and see a sexy, forbidden Slytherin girl. Now he saw Daphne Greengrass. She had a very pronounced facial structure, with large cheek bones and a sharp chin. Her teeth reflected her personality, they were pearly white and very straight, just like her Ice Queen persona. When she laughed, her cheekbones translated into identical dimples, one on each side of her mouth. It was cute.

He (and the other Gryffindor boys) had always put up a sort of mental block when it came to the Slytherin girls. True, as Ron proved, they could find them attractive, but they were always off-limits. There was a stereotype that all the Slytherin girls were either ugly dogs, slept around a lot, or were ugly dogs who slept around a lot. Daphne had somehow escaped the accusation of being one of those stereotypes, she was definitely not ugly, but Harry had never heard any rumours of her sleeping around. The way that she dressed was certainly misleading, because if she didn't have her cleavage on show or a skirt shorter than the school regulation, she had both. This stigma the classes had about the Slytherin girls; all Harry could think about was how much they were missing out. In the short amount of time since he and Daphne had decided to properly get together, he found himself constantly thinking about her, perhaps even more than he did when they were just having an affair.

"Had a good night," Harry smiled.

Currently he and Ron sat at table in their Divination classroom. Hermione shared a table with Seamus Finnigan beside them. It was a Gryffindor-only class today, the basic timetable for their lessons was that single house classes would be taught earlier in the week, and shared lessons would be saved for the end of the week. Harry found this both a curse and a blessing, the single house lessons were often more productive, but as a result if it was a boring lesson there was no escape. Plus it meant he'd have to wait until tonight for a chance to meet up with his blonde haired mistress.

"Where were you?" Ron asked quieter, being sure not to attract the attention of their teacher.

That was a good point. By the time he'd finally snuck home last night, everyone had retired for the evening. He'd silently made his way up to the boy's dorm and gone straight to bed. Nobody had woke him this morning, so due to his late night he'd overslept and missed breakfast. Breakfast would have been his time for the explanation to his friends about his absence last night, but instead he'd had to rush straight over to first lesson.

He hadn't even managed to brush his teeth, and it was very obvious.

"Ended up at the Quidditch pitch," he said after a moments thinking. "Needed some time alone. Spent the whole night up in the air."

Ron looked at him.

"Me and Hermione got worried."

Harry shook his head. "Nah, don't worry about it. It was great. Therapeutic, you know? Like building Lego."

"What's Lego?"

"Doesn't matter."

Ron leaned in for a whisper," at risk of ruining your mood, you know Ginny was asking for you again? She still seemed pretty peeved."

Harry waved him off.

"Mate, if I'm perfectly honest I've started avoiding her. Recently things haven't been the best between us… if you know what I mean."

"Oh yeah, don't worry," Ron nodded. "You can tell me, god only knows if there's an opportunity to bitch about her, I'll be the first one in line."

The two shared a laugh.

"No it's just… I don't know. With everything that's been going on recently I haven't had time to see her. Which I thought she was okay with but…"

Ron opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off.

"And what of you Mr Weasley?" Professor Trelawney asked, approaching their table.

Suddenly all eyes in the class were directed towards their table. Ron looked around, flabbergasted.

"Er… I… yeah? Yeah," he nodded.

Harry could hear Hermione giggling.

"You do?" The Professor watched him, surprised.

"Yeah…. I do?" Ron said, after a pause.

"And pray tell us," Trelawney said, taking another step forward. "What does that entail?"

Ron was silent.

He looked at Harry for support. Harry looked away, smirking.

 

_A common repellent for the Flipendo Knockback Jinx is what?_

_\- Lumos_

_\- Protego_

_\- Incendio_

Daphne smiled, the answer obvious to her. She circled B and flipped over the page.

_What charm is used as primary protection from dark creatures? (E.g, Dementors and Lethifolds)_

_\- Patronus_

_-Fidelous_

_\- Sornous_

Easy, again. She circled A and moved on.

_What summoning charm is often used for small objects?_

_\- Accio_

_\- Engorgio_

_\- Alohomora_

Daphne frowned. This test was third-year stuff. She circled the correct answer and turned over, only to see that had been the last page. She looked up, confused.

The Slytherins first lesson of the day was Defense Against the Dark Arts. It wasn't too bad of an opening lesson, recently since the introduction of Umbridge their lessons had gotten increasingly boring. At the front of the class stood their new teacher in question, watching them silently. Every student besides her had their heads buried deep in their exam papers.

Since the Ministry had appointed Umbridge as their new DADA's teacher, Daphne wasn't blind to the serious censorship going on. They'd ceased all practical learning, and instead the curriculum was focusing on magical theory. What used to be a lesson for practicing charms and enchantments was now a lesson on written explanations for how said charms and enchantments worked. It had been a serious let down for not only the Slytherins but for the entire student body population. But unlike the majority of Hogwarts student, Daphne could understand why they were doing it. She had no doubt the Ministry was aware of the Dark Lords return, and were using censorship such as this to discourage anyone from buying into Potters story.

It was a way of (rather aggressively) reassuring the general public nothing was wrong.

But just because she understood why they were doing it, doesn't mean she agreed with it. Daphne knew what she was doing when it came to most (all) of her subjects, so her grades wouldn't suffer. But what use was good grades if she wasn't actually learning anything? As far as she had noticed, they had ceased all learning of new subjects and instead were just rehashing what they knew. The paper she was currently filling out was a mock exam, something to give her an idea of what to expect from the end of year OWL exam. This was more like a pop quiz pulled out at the beginning of the lesson, if this was the type of thing she was to be expecting from her OWLS, then her education was in serious trouble.

Daphne looked beside her.

Tracy was sat at the desk to her right. She was quickly breezing through the questions, but had a look of confusion on her face.

 _"Even she knows these are too easy. And that's saying something,"_ Daphne thought.

Tracey was never the best in any of her lessons, but she was by no means the worst. She averaged out an Acceptable in most her subjects, something which would be different if she had Daphne had not been friends. It was part of the reason why the two complimented each other so well, Tracey would bring out Daphne's wild side, and in return Daphne would force Her to study more than she wanted. She struggled in a lot of her subjects, but by now Daphne had learned the best ways to help her friend.

"Something the matter, Miss Greengrass?" Umbridge said from the front of the class.

Her classmates stopped writing. Some of them turned and looked at her, others remained quiet, listening intently.

Daphne gave her a blank look.

"No."

Umbridge smiled sweetly, "Then why ever have you stopped writing?"

Daphne gestured to her paper, unimpressed.

"I've finished, Professor."

Umbridge raised her eyebrow and started walking towards her.

"Really?" she asked, a hint of surprise in her voice.

"Me too", came Pansy's voice from across the room.

"And here," said Draco.

"Same here."

"And me."

"Give us onnneeeeee sec," Tracy quickly scribbled something down. "Okay, me too."

Umbridge reached Daphne's desk, and picked up her exam paper. She slowly flicked through it. She gave a small smile and placed it back down, before turning to the rest of the class.

"Well… aren't you all a bunch of cleverclogs!"

The class nervously smiled back at her.

"Let's see, it's currently..." She looked at her watch. "Ah yes, only ten minutes of lesson left. Very well, you reward, all those who have finished can relax now until lessons over. Do try to refrain from talking, though."

She smiled again, turned, and then made her way back to her spot at the front of the classroom.

As some distance was made between the two of them, it occurred to Daphne just how much she hated that woman. She was a symbol of everything that was wrong in the Ministry.

According to Daphne's father, the only reason the Ministry gave her a position at Hogwarts was to keep an eye on Dumbledore. The Ministry was under the impression that Dumbledore was specifically training his students to fight the Dark Lord, and they were still trying to discourage the idea that he had returned. In a way that technically meant that Daphne and the Ministry were on the same side, but for different reasons. The wizarding population being unaware of the Dark Lords return was a good thing for the Death Eaters. But just because they were on the same side, it did not mean Daphne had to cooperate with them.

She hated Umbridge, she hated the censorship she was enforcing throughout the school, and she hated for her what she had done to the man she calls her boyfriend. But none the less, Daphne knew more than a thing or two about not letting her personal life affect her grades, so she'd show respect to Umbridge, knowing full well what would happen to her if she didn't.

Her thoughts were drawn back to Harry. 

For the first time in her life, last night Daphne had felt like an actual teenage girl. For so long she had been punching above her own weight, choosing education over social interaction, she had been a grown woman in a teenager's body. But last night, she'd cuddled, giggled and smiled the night away over a boy. She was quickly becoming infatuated with him, she was well aware. Which alone was impressive, Daphne was sure to stomp out any feelings resembling anything close to a crush the second they arrived. Now she was dating Harry Potter. And if last night was any indication of what she had been missing out on this whole time, then damn had she been missing out.

"Since we have some time before the end," Umbridge began again. "I think now would be a good time to inform you all about extra credit assignments."

Daphne's ears perked up.

This could be an opportunity for her to get some actual learning done, as well as improving her already perfect marks. It may even give her a shot at getting ahead of Grainger in the grades department.

Umbridge leaned backwards against her desk. "Any of you interested in taking on such assignments, come up to my office at the end."

Daphne quickly glanced over to Tracey. She was looking at Umbridge.

A quick _p_ _st_ and she had the girl's attention.

She gestured over to their teacher, asking her what she thought. Tracey shook her head.

Ten minutes later, Umbridge dismissed the class and went up to her office. As Daphne and Tracey stood up, Daphne leaned in to the girl.

"I'm gonna stay behind and hear what she has to say. Wait for me?"

Tracey laughed.

"Pfffttt no. I'm hungry, I'll see you in the Great Hall."

Daphne gave a small smile and nodded. Tracy left and slowly the class began to file out of the room. Only a few students remained. Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, Millicent and Cassius. Draco and his goons made towards the stairs of Umbridge's office, with Pansy following quickly behind them.

Daphne waited until Millicent and Cassius started moving before she did. Silently, the seven of them made their way single file up the stairs to her office. Without knocking, Draco reached the door, opened it and walked in.

The rest filed in behind him. Daphne looked around in disgust.

If she had to describe the room in one word, it'd be the word "girly".

All pieces of fabric in the room had been turned a ghastly bright pink. Frilly doilies sat beneath any and every moveable object and the entire back wall was covered in cat-themed china. Daphne could only imagine the wrenching noises Tracey would be making if she was here. Umbridge sat at her desk in the center of the room, sipping at a cup of tea with her pinky raised. She matched the room both in color and cringe.

"Ahh, how lovely of you all to join me. Tea, any of you?" 

All of them denied her offer, besides Crabbe, who went to accept before Draco nudged him.

Umbridge stood up and made her way over to the group.

"Miss Bulstrode, if you would be so kind to close the door. The rest of you, would you kindly form a line against the wall?" Umbridge smiled sweetly to them.

Daphne obeyed, and got in line between Pansy and Crabbe. Umbridge began to pace before them.

"Isn't this lovely? Now, you're all here for the extra credit assignment am I right?" 

They all nodded.

"Good… So, since the introduction of Educational Decree Number 98, I have been permitted to start an extra credit group for the students whom I deem worthy. And without a doubt Slytherin has been the most well behaved of any of my classes. And since you seven seem very eager to do well, you all seem like good candidates! Now… on a more serious note, some of you may be aware of certain rumors going around. Rumors about the return of a certain dark wizard… rumors that I can assure you all, are entirely untrue."

Daphne swore she saw Draco smirk. Honestly, she had to repress the urge herself.

"However despite the inaccuracy of these rumors, _certain_ people, seem determined on spreading them. One of which seems to be our beloved Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. I have a tremendous respect for the Headmaster, but it appears his old age may finally be catching up to him. He's no longer in control of his own actions you see, and it appears he has become susceptible to bad influences. These bad influences have lead him to not only believe that the Dark Lord has indeed returned, but also to take the responsibility of fighting him into his own hands. Now of course, we know how ridiculous this idea is, but it's furthermore proof that our Headmaster is no longer capable of doing his job."

Daphne raised an eyebrow.

 _"This woman needs to sort her life out,"_ she thought, but kept listening.

"Shocking as it may sound to you, the Ministry has reason to believe that the Headmaster may actually be recruiting Hogwarts students in this one man goose chase of his! We have reason to believe he may be taking advantage of his position as the Headmaster to brainwash students into building an army for himself. And an army lead by a mad man… who knows who he could put in danger? Why, he might even make an attempt at the Ministry of Magic…"

Daphne had to work seriously hard to repress a giggle.

"So I have decided to put together a small group of trustworthy students to help reassure the school population of their safety, and at the same time, discourage any ideals that the Headmaster may be spreading, in return for extra credit. This group will be called the Inquisitorial Squad, and will function similarly to Prefects. Members will be allowed to award and deduct House Points as well as give Detentions. In return for these special privileges, you will help reassure the school population of their safety, as well as informing me and my second in command, our caretaker Mister Flitch, of any information about students who may be up to no good. Especially those who may be a part of this rumored army Dumbledore may be building. Those students are to be treated as terrorists to the Ministry, and taken into Azkaban custardy immediately. I presume we are all still interested?" Umbridge finished, maintaining her sweet smile.

Daphne bit her lip. The idea that Dumbledore was building an army was absolutely ridiculous.

A giant snake, an escaped convict, a dragon and a Death Eater have all been on the loose in Hogwarts since Daphne started, and not once had she seen the old fart lift a finger to stop any of it. The idea that he was recruiting students to take over the Ministry… Merlins Beard was this woman was delusional.

However, her father had taught her well at manipulating people to less intelligent. She knew full well there was no secret army being built, and this Inquisitorial Squad the woman was building was absolutely pointless. Which translated into easy extra credit for Daphne.

The group all nodded.

Umbridge clapped her hands together gently. "How wonderful. Well, I have some special badges for you all prepared. We just have a few itty bitty papers to sign and then we can get started."

* * *

 

"Where's Ron?" Hermione asked, catching up to Harry. The two walked side by side down the Grand Staircase, making their way towards the Great Hall.

"Detention with Trelawney. Which you would have known if you hadn't have legged it the second lesson finished."

Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed, "I'm sorry, you know I can't stand that woman."

Harry smiled.

"So are you coming to Hogsmeade with us this weekend?" Hermione asked.

He frowned.

"First I've heard of this..?"

"Well I'm sure if you spent some time with us these days you'd have heard about it sooner," Hermione said, a hint of harshness in her voice.

Harry nodded.

"Touché."

"Me, Ron and Ginny are going on the Hogsmeade trip together, Ron was supposed to ask you about it in lesson just then. I don't really know where you and Ginny stand these days so I felt it was better him asking…"

Harry sighed.

"You guys just won't leave it alone will you?"

"Well, Harry," Hermione began. "You can hardly expect us to. Our friendship circle is the four of us, it's obvious you guys are having trouble and you can't expect me and Ron to just ignore it. At least tell us what's going on. Or better yet, fix it, because it's getting very awkward for us."

Harry stopped and turned to Hermione.

"Look," He began harshly. "I've told Ron and I'll tell you. I'm not doing anything wrong, it's her. She knew when we got together that this wouldn't be a normal relationship and she said she was fine with it. I can't do all the cute girly things, I've got the world thinking I killed Cedric, I've got Voldemort after me, I've got Umbridge on my case, and I've essentially become the schools new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I have more important things I need to focus on right now, yet she just wants all my attention on her."

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

" _Don't_ shout at me, I'm just telling you how it feels for us. I'm not accusing you of anything, Harry."

Harry sighed, and started walking again.

"Right, sorry."

"Have you tried discussing this all with her?" Hermione said by his side.

"Once. On Monday evening. She accused of me using all of that as an excuse to not be around her."

Hermione scoffed, "I don't think she worded it like that Harry."

"Don't really see how you can misinterpret " _I don't believe you"_ ".

"Did she actually say it like that though?"

"Yes."

Hermione stared at him.

"She did," he stressed.

"Okay, okay," Hermione defended. "If you want, I'll try and have a talk with her. Whatever she said to you she obviously said it when she was annoyed, so I'll try and see how she actually feels about it, okay?"

He shrugged.

"You know, you could at least try and act concerned about your relationship," Hermione said.

Harry knew the actual reason he was coming across as so unenthusiastic about his relationship with Ginny. Since getting together with Daphne, whatever thoughts he'd be having about Ginny had been replaced with her. Not only replaced, but doubled. Obviously he felt bad for Ginny, even though she was being completely unreasonable in their relationship, it didn't mean that she should be cheated on.

But honestly, he didn't think enough about Ginny these days for the impact to have a real effect on him. It was only when others brought her up that it occurred to him, oh yeah, he had a girlfriend.

And he knew that made him all sorts of bastard lowlife. He considered what life would be like if he and Daphne hadn't had gotten together. He and Ginny would still be having the same issues… wouldn't they? Did Harry actually need the time away from his friends to focus on the many issues he was currently facing, or was Ginny right and they were excuses to stay away from her? To be totally honest, Harry knew the answer.

The reason his current relationship was failing was because he was no longer interested in Ginny. And the reason he was no longer interested in Ginny was because he had found somebody better. As harsh as that sounded… he didn't care enough anymore.

But, all of this was no reason to neglect his friends. If Daphne was going to be a recurring thing in his life, he'd need to make a balance between the two. And he would have to sort something out with Ginny.

And as much as it made him feel guilty to say, sort something out meant break up with. It just wasn't fair to continue leading her on like this. Yes, though he didn't like admitting it, part of the appeal of Daphne was the danger of sneaking around behind his friends backs. But Ginny didn't deserve this. He should have done it the second he realized he didn't love her back. Harry was the bad guy in this situation no doubt, but at least this way he could reclaim a bit of his humanity.

"Okay… I'll come Hogsmeade this weekend. The four of us will have a good time. It'll probably do me some good," Harry said.

"I'm glad, Ron will be happy. Merlin knows he's been bored the past few days," Hermione smiled.

This could still work. He just needed to balance his time out. He'd make up for the time that he had missed out with his friends this weekend in Hogsmeade.

And until then, he needed to start thinking about how to break things off with Ginny.


	8. The Headmaster

One of the four walls in the Slytherin Common Room was made of glass, and on the opposite side of it was the Great Lake, illuminating the room with a darkened green tinge. Occasionally a school of fish swam by and amused the students, or in the case of a Grindylow, frightened them. A brick wall separated the glass in the middle, forming an isosceles trapezoid shape of the Common Room. The wall sported a fireplace that burned with a green flame, and just above it hung a large shield with a Slytherin emblem on it. Two leather sofas and an arm chair stood before the fire place, with a dark wooden table between them. A few exotic animal skulls and fancy portraits of Medieval Slytherins decorated the surrounding walls.

The whole room glowed with the aura of a mysterious, underwater shipwreck.

"I'm going out again, I'll be back in about two hours or so," Daphne said, entering the room.

Tracey sat up from her position on one of the sofas, coming into Daphne's view.

"That's the third night this week, and it's a Wednesday?"she asked, confused.

"Places to be and people to see."

Tracey's eyes light up.

"You're seeing your boyf again aren't you?" she teased.

"Did you just call him my boyf?" Daphne asked, smirking.

Tracey gasped excitedly.

"You are, aren't you?"

Daphne tried to hide her giggle.

"How can you tell?"

"Look at you!" Tracey gestured to Daphne. "I've never seen you so happy in school! Oh Daphne, you need to tell me about him!"

Daphne continued to repress the urge to burst out into a grin.

"We've discussed this, I told you if it gets serious enough, then I will."

Tracey rolled her eyes and lay back down on the couch. "But looooook how happy you're getting over him! I want to be a part of that! I am your half-sister after all."

"Emphasis on the half," Daphne smiled, shaking her head.

"Have you told Astoria?"

"Of course not."

"Have you told anyone?"

"No! You know I haven't. The first person I tell will be you."

"Has he told anyone?"

"I don't think so."

"But do you know for sure?"

"Why are you asking?" Daphne raised an eyebrow.

"Because, if even one person in this school knows, I'll find out somehow."

"Oh yeah?" Daphne mused. "How?"

Tracey smirked, "I have my ways."

Daphne shook her head, smiling. "Well you keep your ways far away from me. For now neither me nor him are comfortable with other people knowing about our involvement together. You can respect that can't you, dear half-sister?"

"Ouch, using family against itself. Daphne Greengrass, you Ice Queen," Tracey pretended to be offended.

"That's what they call me," Daphne winked. She turned and began making her way towards the Common Rooms exit.

"You know you're gonna get in trouble if you get caught out this late?" Tracey shouted, unmoving from her position.

"Don't you worry, I have my ways," Daphne waved her off.

"Sorry, I'm family. It's what we do," Tracey giggled.

Fifteen minutes later, Daphne arrived at her familiar waiting spot on the Seventh Floor corridor. Making her way there had been easy enough for one simple reason; she was allowed out after hours now. Umbridge had explained the rules of the Inquisitorial Squad to them all carefully a few hours prior, and one of the special privileges was –much in the same way as Prefects- permission to roam the castle after hours.

On her way up she had bumped into Professor Sprout, who after hearing Daphne's explanation, sent the girl on her way, before quickly making her own way up to Headmasters Office. The knowledge that Umbridge had formed the Inquisitorial Squad without the knowledge of the other staff members was a surprising one, but seeing Professors Sprouts plum body run off to inform McGonagall about it had made Daphne's night. As much as she hated Umbridge, she had to admit she found the civil war going on between the Hogwarts teachers quite amusing.

Just as a smile crept onto her lips, she suddenly had company.

"Hope that smiles for me," a voice came out of thin air.

Daphne flinched and grasped her heart.

"That's not funny, Potter," she spat.

Harry took off his invisibility cloak, appearing in full in front of her. He, like her, still had his uniform robes on. Albeit tie loosely hanging around his neck, shirt untucked and collar uneven. It was a scruffy look that he made work… somehow.

"How long have you been there!?" she said harshly.

"Hey, I've only just got here, calm down," he laughed at her.

Daphne crossed her arms. "Just open the door."

Harry obeyed and summoned the door. The room was once again pure white with its large sofa in the center. The two made their way inside, again careful to lock it.

Daphne turned to Harry and smiled. He looked around briefly, before smiling back.

Then the girl grabbed him by the tie, and in one sudden motion, pulled him down to her level and forced him into a kiss. Harry's eyes widened in surprise, before he caught up. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth more and deepened the kiss.

Harry was a few inches taller than Daphne, so he was having the crane his neck down to get a good angle, while Daphne's heels were just about reaching off the ground. The two were packed in very close, it was a sense of intimacy Daphne craved, but one she had rarely felt.

A shiver made its way down her spine, and she pushed herself further into the boy.

He responded by turning them both, and letting himself fall backwards against the door. This leaning back motion lowered him fully to Daphne's height, which allowed them both more room to explore their kiss. The two continued their snogging session for a good minute or so, before finally breaking away.

"There, all better," she said sweetly, before making her way over to the sofa.

Harry looked at her, back to where she had just been, back to her again. Quickly he made his way over to her, joining her sitting down on the couch.

"That was… nice?" He offered, unsure of how to respond.

"It's been a while since we've kissed like that," she smiled.

Harry chuckled. "Like a week you mean."

Daphne smiled.

"You know, I don't really mind telling you. I have no idea what came over me first time we did that. I mean, I know it was probably the potion, but I hope you believe me when I tell you it's definitely not something I normally do."

"I know… same. I hadn't really kissed a girl besides Ginny until then. And I definitely never…" Harry gestured to them.

Daphne shrugged. "Guess that's just what lust potion does to you."

Harry nodded and looked at his hands, unsure of how to continue.

"You really hadn't kissed anyone else before?" Daphne raised an eyebrow.

He nodded.

"Surprising," Daphne said.

Harry smiled. "Yeah?"

Daphne began examining her nails. "Though I'm the only Slytherin girl you'll find who'll admit it, a lot of women in the school find you very attractive."

Harry attempted to hide his smile in the cutest way. Daphne herself ended up smiling over the image.

"This is where you return the compliment," she whispered.

"Oh, er, I er," Harry mumbled. "OH, no, same actually. Ron said he found you very attractive."

Daphne smiled.

"Really?"

"Well," Harry frowned. "He said he'd do you, which I presume translates into him fancying you."

"Oh god, Harry," Daphne put her hand on his shoulder, smiling.

"Too much information."

"But no," Harry began. "Daphne you are honestly one of the most beautiful girls I've ever met."

For a second the two locked eyes. Before Daphne turned away, trying to contain her internal squealing.

"Thank you, Harry," she smiled, staring into her lap.

She was not used to receiving such compliments. Of course she had heard them from her father, and Tracey occasionally when she was in one of her flirty moods, but it was the first time she had heard something like that from a boy. Okay, make from a boy she liked. The occasional cat call from a group of Hufflepuff boys in the corridor didn't count.

Daphne worked hard on her appearance for many reasons. The reason she often went with was that it gave her a sense of professionalism. If she always made time to make sure she looked good, then it showed that she was in control of her life. The other reason however, the reason she didn't like to admit, was that it made her feel pretty. Yes, it was a girly and childish thing. But Daphne enjoyed the looks she'd see guys give her out of the corner of her eyes. So she liked attention, sue her. She worked hard in life, and strived to be the best in all departments. Her appearance was just another one of those departments. And it was nice to have her hard work appreciated, especially by someone like Harry.

"What's the letter for?" Harry asked.

"Pardon?" she asked, confused.

He gestured to her robes. Daphne looked down and spotted her Inquisitorial Squad Badge, a big stainless steel 'I' pin.

"Ooooh, er, it stands for Inquisitorial Squad."

Harry frowned, confused.

"Umbridge started it today," Daphne began. "It's for extra credit, we're like Prefects. We get special privileges, and in return we snitch on students to Umbridge."

Harry nodded. "What privileges?"

"Erm… House points. We can take them and give them away. Annddd… we're allowed out after hours, which is good for me," Daphne thought.

"Oh and detentions, I can give those," she added in.

Harry smiled, "Check you out! So you could give me detention?"

"Depends…" Daphne pursed her lips. "Have you been a naughty boy?"

Harry blushed and looked away.

Daphne giggled and took his hand. She found how uncomfortable he got talking about sex very cute. Normally for Daphne she'd be the one in his position, whenever Tracey and the other Slytherin girls began discussing it she was always the one to bury her face behind her hair. But since she and Harry had started seeing each other… they had basically started dry humping the minute they met, they didn't really have much left to be shy about. Though he showed a lot of dominance whenever they were 'together', conversation-wise Harry was very submissive. Which meant it was very easy for Daphne to tease him.

But even if it wasn't, Daphne enjoyed the act of flirting with him. It was due to her danger fetish; she would never normally dream of saying half the stuff she said to him. She was taking a leap of faith and leaving her comfort zone. It was a rush of adrenaline she loved, one she found herself feeling more and more these days. Sometimes after using particularly flirtatious lines, she'd actually think to herself "Did I really just say that?"

"I'm kiddingggg…" she reassured. "Don't get too excited."

Harry looked at her and shook his head, smiling.

"How was your day, anyway?" he asked.

"Ehh," she shrugged. "Okay. Besides the Inquisitorial Squad, pretty boring."

Harry was about to respond, but she interrupted him.

"I'll tell you what though, Umbridge's lesson are getting ridiculous. Have you done the OWLS mock exam yet? It was stupid easy. She can piss off with all this censorship going on. Political correctness gone mad."

Harry nodded, "Hermione was saying something similar. Mind you, Ron still didn't manage to finish it before lesson was over."

"We're not learning anything anymore, it's all about just getting the grades."

"Umbridge doesn't want us learning anything that could potentially make any of us a threat. She's convinced Dumbledore's going to make an attempt on the Ministry."

Daphne looked at him. "Really? She mentioned something like that, I thought she was exaggerating… does she really think that?"

Harry nodded.

Daphne shook her head in disgust. "God, that woman irritates me. Can't wait for her to get fired."

"How do you know she'll be fired?"

"Well, it's a matter of time. The Ministry will figure out eventually that they can't cover up You-Know-Who anymore, and then she'll be made irrelevant. Besides, none of our DADA's teachers last longer than a year."

Harry thought for a second.

"Aw shit, yeah."

Daphne smiled.

"You hadn't noticed?"

"Never occurred to me."

"You killed Professor Quirrell, Professor Lockhart went insane," Daphne counted them off each of her fingers, "Lupin was a werewolf and Moody was a Death Eater. The jobs cursed. The seventh years say it only started when our year began."

Harry nodded. "That would make sense. Each of them have been involved with me somehow."

"Apart from Lockhart."

"Apart from Lockhart," Harry nodded.

"What actually happened with him again?" Daphne asked.

"When we were in Chamber of Secrets, me and Ron found out he'd been using memory charms on famous witches and wizards and then taking credit for what they'd done. Tried to do the same to us, but he used Ron's broken wand and the spell backfired." Harry explained.

Daphne nodded, thinking.

"He was quite fit, though."

"Oh god, not you too," Harry laughed.

"Whaaat? He was. Shit Professor though."

The two shared a small giggle.

"What about you," Daphne said. "How was your day?"

Harry nodded. "Good. I'm going to go on the Hogsmeade trip this weekend, are you coming?"

Daphne shook her head.

"The Slytherins always go to that, me and Tracey take advantage of the empty Common Room."

"To do what?"

"Naked Pillow fights."

Harry fell silent.

"…Really?"

"No. We use it to study."

The two shared another laugh.

"What you going to do there?" Daphne asked, deciding to get to know her boyfriend a little more.

"I'm going down with Ron, Hermione and Ginny. We'll probably just go for a browse."

Daphne raised her eyebrows and gave a sad smile. "Ahh yeah… Ginny."

Harry took a deep breath.

"I was actually planning to break up with her while I was there."

Daphne choked on her own breath.

"Really?"

Harry nodded.

"I-I… I know I'm not exactly the best person to be talking to you about this but, you sure?"

He nodded again.

"It's been going downhill for a while now. Ron reckons it was never going to work out anyway."

"I mean… I didn't want to say, but she did kind of seem like a Harry Potter fan girl. Not that I actually know her, of course. I'm just going off what I hear and see."

Harry gave a false smile. "It's one rumor that's true."

"You know…" Daphne struggled to find the words. "That won't change anything between us right? We're still a secret."

Harry nodded quickly. "Oh yeah, yeah, don't worry."

"Okay good, just making sure," Daphne nodded.

"But really," Daphne giggled. "Could you actually imagine peoples reaction if we did make it public?"

Harry thought for a minute, before smiling.

"I definitely wouldn't be invited back to Ron's again for the summer, that'd be sure."

"My house would crucify me in my sleep. They're sacrifice me to the Giant Squid."

The two shared another chuckle.

* * *

 

Severus Snape made his way down the corridor. He'd finished both his lessons with sixth year Ravenclaws and the first year Slytherins, and now at last he was free of all duties. It had been a long day, but it didn't seem to be ending any time soon.

There was something that desperately needed to be brought to Dumbledore's attention. He waited a day to be perfectly sure, but now he was positive of it. Two of his students were under the influence of a potion gone wrong. A potion that was originally intended to give courage to those too shy to admit their feelings had instead be mutated into a kind of… hormone driven sex-drive. The fact that those students were Daphne Greengrass, one of his prized pupils, and Harry Potter, number one on the Death Eaters wishlist, definitely did not help the matters.

He rounded a corner. The way he glided down the corridor, he moved with a purpose. Though he wasn't going particularly quickly, there was determination on his face. He swept down the corridors like a ghost. And like a ghost, he certainly wasn't something a student out of bed would like to bump into at this hour.

He slowed as he reached the gargoyle entrance.

"Sherbet Lemon."

Snape would never admit it to anyone, much less the Headmaster, but he had no idea what a sherbert lemon was. It was his understanding that it was some form of muggle sweet Dumbledore was fond of, but beyond that he could not describe one to you.

An eerie stone clanking sound, and the gargoyle began to move. It twisted and rose into a hole in the ceiling, revealing a spiral staircase. Snape quickly stepped onto the staircase and began moving upwards with it. He ran over what he was going to say in his head. It was not an issue he had been looking forward to bringing up, not only was it an embarrassing subject and far below his pay grade, but it also hit a little too close to home for Severus. Miss Greengrass was, for all intensive purposes, to be considered a Death Eater. Meaning she of all people was the last person they needed to be getting involved romantically with the Potter boy.

Though, Severus thought, she was probably hardly in the right state of mind. The effects of the potion had likely gone the same route as Amortentia and put the two in a state similar to a mindless trance. He knew all too well how his Slytherins thought themselves above the Gryffindors, it was very unlikely she'd have gone near him if not. And alas, as much as he'd like to blame it entirely on Potter, the same probably went for him as well.

The gargoyle slowed to a stop, and the potions master stepped out into a short corridor. Snape made his way over to the door opposite and listened. It was all quiet. He knocked.

After a moment, a response came.

"Come in," came a weak voice.

The Headmasters office was a large and beautiful room, full of centuries old artifacts. A various number of strange instruments stood on spiral-legged tables, with tall piles of books forming a makeshift wall around each of them. The walls were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, all of whom were snoozing due to the late time Severus had arrived.

Off to the right of the room, Albus Dumbledore stood over a glowing white object, examining it carefully. The Headmaster noticed his guest.

"Severus… You caught me just as I was preparing for bed."

"I am sorry for the disturbance, Headmaster," Snape said, unapologetically.

"It's quite alright. What is it?"

"I have reason to believe there have been some unfortunate developments with the Potter boy," Snape said plainly.

Dumbledore nodded, "I see."

He made his way over to his desk in the center of the room and took a seat. He rubbed his temple.

"What is it?" He asked, not looking at Snape.

He took a deep breath.

"I was cleaning out one of my potion cauldrons the other day when I happened upon what appeared to be a heavily mutated form of Amortentia. And not a day earlier, I had discovered Mister Potter… shall we say… _coming of age_ , with another student at the very same cauldron. I-"

Though he couldn't see the old man's face, he could hear Dumbledore wheezing.

"… I beg your pardon Headmaster but I fail to see where the humor is?"

Dumbledore waved him off, trying to hide his grin. "Severus, I know you don't like the boy, but really, he's a teenage lad! That's what they do. Surely you can't be trying to get him in trouble for snogging someone?"

Snape scowled at the Headmaster.

"May I continue?"

Dumbledore nodded apologetically, still smiling.

"The reason I thought it was worth bringing it to your attention… Headmaster, was because that student… was Miss Daphne Greengrass."

Dumbledore's smile vanished.

"Greengrass…" Dumbledore thought for a moment. "Isn't she….?"

"On the list? Yes," Snape finished his sentence.

Dumbledore nodded. He put his head in his hands, looking down at his desk. Snape could sense the man was in deep thought.

"How did this happen?" He asked, not looking up.

"I suspect it was due to the potion. I myself have never experienced a mixture such as this, it was likely an accidental result of them failing to meet the lessons criteria. What they were supposed to be creating was Kissing Concoction, a low affect love potion designed to give those who are too shy to admit their true intentions an extra bit of courage. What they ended up creating however… I have never seen before. But if I was to make an educated guess, I would say was a form of hormone-inducing Potion."

Dumbledore nodded.

"Is this a recurring thing? Between the two of them I mean… Is it possible now they are free of the potions influences, its effect has worn off?"

Snape shuffled his feet. "It is possible Headmaster, but it's also unlikely. The potion shared a lot of similarities with Amortentia… which as I'm sure you know can be a very difficult potion to recover from. I'm afraid we are entirely in the dark."

Dumbledore nodded and lifted his head. Snape could see his eyes misting over as he thought.

"Keep an eye on them, Severus. And if you can, find out to what extent their relationship is. Associating with Miss Greengrass is a big risk… but if what you're telling me is true, and the boy isn't in his right mind… Then presumably the girl isn't either. Which means we should not consider her a threat."

"However," he continued. "If this is a recurring thing, and the rest of the Greengrass family are aware of this… then it provides Lord Voldemort with a link straight to him."

Snape swallowed.

"How do we find out if she has informed her family?"

Dumbledore liked his lips.

"Intercept her owls. Also, try and have a talk with the girl."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"Have a talk with her," he nodded. "Not as a teacher to a student, but as friends. Find out how she feels about the situation. Make her trust you."

Snape found his mouth hanging open.

"Headmaster, my student's romantic relations are not something I would like to be involved in," he protested.

Dumbledore waved his hand, silencing him.

"Severus, we need to find out where they both stand on this situation. Are they still, how you say, 'coming of age' together, or have the potions affects worn off and they're trying to move on?"

Snape looked around, thinking of ways to get him out of this situation, "why can't you have this talk with Potter?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "Alas, you know my reasons for distancing myself from the boy."

Snape opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

"Fine. I'll have a talk with the girl. We'll curl up together in front of the fireplace in the Common Room. We'll have a cup of tea and talk all about her boy trouble."

Dumbledore frowned.

"I'd hardly say that's necessary, Severus."

"Goodnight, Headmaster."

Snape turned on his heels and aggressively made his way out of Dumbledore's office. As he closed the door behind him, he swore he could hear Dumbledore cackling.

What an utter embarrassment he was asked of. Severus Snape made every attempt to make his students scared of him. He had tried the nice approach once, and quickly learned the only way to make his students obey was for them to fear him. They worked harder on their assignments, they made sure they arrived on time and they obeyed his orders. He had worked hard to build a reputation among them. A reputation that Dumbledore was asking him to trash by offering an arm of comfort to the Greengrass girl.

His job was to teach his students potion making. And beyond that, to protect Harry Potter. Talking boy troubles with his female students was nowhere in his job description.

But alas, he would follow the Headmasters orders. He would talk to the girl, but he would do his _own_ way.


	9. For Those We Love

The next few days passed relatively quick for Harry.

A little too quick if he was honest.

True, the revelation that he was going to break up with Ginny had definitely helped him resolve a lot of his anxieties about the situation. He now had a day in sight where all his feelings of betrayal and deceit would come to an end, which helped calm his nerves, but also gave him something to look forward to. But now that weekend was finally upon him, and he felt vastly out of depth.

He had never even been in a relationship before, how was he supposed to know how breakups worked? He knew Ginny had a temper, so he planned to do it somewhere in public. But beyond that? He was clueless.

The one thing he had going for him though, or, the one thing he  _hoped_ he had going for him was Ron. Based on the conversations he and Ron had been having about Ginny over the past week, their breakup shouldn't come as a surprise to him. Ron had made it perfectly clear he sympathized with Harry's struggles, so he wasn't expecting the two of them fall out over this. Hermione on the other hand… probably wouldn't be as forgiving. But things would be better off this way regardless, as Harry constantly reminded himself.

He hadn't seen much of Daphne since their Room of Requirement visit last Wednesday. They had occasionally exchanged an odd glance or smile across the Great Hall or a crowded classroom, but outside from that, it was the longest the two had gone without meeting. Harry had wondered why that was, but let his trust speak louder than his anxiety. The two simply hadn't been presented with an opportunity to arrange something yet, it was as simple as that.

And to be honest, the time off from his girl-drama had been a welcome one. The next DA meeting was coming up on Sunday, and now with the new Inquisitorial Squad roaming the halls, the members would need extra briefing on secrecy. That was something he had to bring up with Daphne, he reminded himself. If he could get a timetable of whose shift was when, or who was stationed where, it could be a great deal of help for them.

He hoped to arrange something with Daphne for the Sunday evening, since he would be on the Seventh Floor anyway, and she'd be roaming the nearby halls. But that would come down to if he was able to meet with her before then, which he found unlikely, since she mentioned she spent most Hogsmeade trips in the Slytherin Common Room.

But all of this was a while off, anyway.

Right now he still had to deal with the matter at hand.

To say the trip down the Hogsmeade was awkward… would have been a gross understatement.

Ginny and Harry hadn't spoken much since their argument a few nights prior, and it was obviously apparent the two were still mad at each other. The entire walk down the carriages, the carriage ride, and then the walk into the village had been taken in silence. Something which was made more awkward by the fact they were traveling with Ron and Hermione, who were very much aware of the tension between the two and because of it, didn't feel up to saying much either.

So the four of them traveled in complete silence, until two hours they were all seat in the Three Broomsticks. The atmosphere was thick.

" _Soooo_ …" Ron placed his hands out on the table in front of him. "I reckon we should come here one year before the snowfall, innit? Bet you'd barely recognize the place."

A light sigh was heard from Hermione's corner of the table.

"The weather? Really, Ronald?"

Ron fell silent.

Harry was wondering how to play this. He'd need Ron and Hermione gone first, obviously... Even for him that was a given. Once he had Ginny on his own, he'd make his move. What that move was exactly… well, again, he was still trying to figure that part out. He had narrowed it down to two choices.

Either he was going to start an argument, a big one, and spontaneously break up with her in the heat of it, or he was just going to come right out and say it. Either way it was probably going to result with Ginny screaming at him, so the real question was, what was the  _least_  suspicious way for him to do it? Them having an argument that pushes him over the line was the most natural way to play it, but it would also require dragging a lot of attention to them and getting himself worked up. Just telling Ginny straight that he wanted to break up with her seemed… a little too easy. Suspiciously easy, in fact.

Harry was pulled from his thought train by Ron gently tapping on the table.

"I've got an idea," his ginger friend perked up. "Why don't me and Hermione go find some DA members and double check with them about tomorrow night? Up for that Hermione?"

_"God yes."_

Within seconds the two had dragged themselves up out of their seats and launched themselves at the exit of the building, leaving he and Ginny alone.

Harry chewed at his lip. Somehow, he didn't get the feeling he would be hearing from them for a while.

Harry turned to his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend and took a deep breath.

* * *

Daphne usually enjoyed it whenever the Hogsmeade trips were on. The entire common room drained, and outside the occasional second or first year student, the place was entirely still. She had the pick of the lot; she was able to relax and watch the lake through the windows, study in the comfort of isolation, have tea and read a book, whatever she liked.

This weekend however, was not one of those occasions.

"Can you pass me my tea?" Astoria asked.

Daphne leaned forward from her place on the armchair, plucked Astoria's tea up from the coffee table and handed it to her.

"Thanks sis."

Daphne mumbled in response.

Astoria had fallen ill again. Which as usual, meant Daphne's life had to be put on halt so she could care for her.

Astoria had… how to put it lightly?

Occasionally, her body weakened to the point where her bones essentially became glass and her skin became paper.

Thankfully, the blood defect seemed to have skipped Daphne, but that didn't make it any easier on the older sister. Although the Hogwarts staff and students were aware of Astoria's condition, Daphne still considered it her responsibility to look after her. Whenever her illness flared up, Daphne would be right by her sister's side, night and day.

"How you feelin'?" she asked her younger sibling.

Daphne felt bad. The current Hogsmeade trip was the first one the third years had been allowed on all year, and it was intended to be Astoria's first. She had been ever so looking forward to it. She had even attempted to get dressed this morning, but since the showing signs of her illness began a few days ago, Daphne knew she would have no chance at going.

"I'm okay," Astoria said gently. "Appreciate you stayin' back for me."

Physically, Astoria looked perfectly fine, if not a bit pale. She was more popular than her older sister, which meant any other day of the year she'd be running around with her classmates. She had a similar build that Daphne had when she was her age, but stood a few inches shorter. But of course, the biggest difference between the two sisters was their painfully obvious hair color. In contrast to Daphne's almost beach blonde, practically white hair, Astoria's was a shiny jet black. It made the two sisters look quite a pair when they stood side-by-side

"Don't be daft. Why don't you try getting some sleep?"

Daphne had fashioned her a makeshift bed on one of the Common Room sofas. She felt that if Astoria couldn't go the Hogsmeade, the very least she could do is make sure she wasn't stuck in her room all day. At least this way she had a chance to be social and get things done.

Astoria moaned. She rolled over on the sofa and pulled her head beneath the covers.

Just as she did so, two second year students entered the room, chatting loudly between themselves. Astoria didn't flinch, but their lack of common decency didn't sit well with Daphne.

She let out a loud cough, catching their attention. They looked in her direction and their faces dropped.

A simple glare from her told them all they needed to know. The two fell silent, but continued to cross the Common Room floor. Only after they entered the boy's dormitory did Daphne smirk in satisfaction.

She didn't  _try_  to intimidate the younger students, but she was  _so_  good at it.

"Bullying younglings again?" A voice entered from behind.

Daphne chuckled.

"Of  _course_  not. And keep your voice down, Tori is trying to sleep."

Tracey appeared from behind Daphne and plonked herself down on the sofa beside her. Astoria poked her head out from beneath the covers.

"Hey Trace," Astoria said weakly.

"Alright dude," Tracey nodded to her, "how you feeling?"

"Rubbish."

Tracey shrugged, "You should get sent home whenever you get this bad."

"Just because she's ill doesn't means her can't focus on her studies," Daphne interjected.

Tracey waved Daphne's remark off, having heard her argument before.

It was an odd relationship the three sisters shared. Biologically, Tracey and Astoria weren't related, but they shared Daphne as a half-sister. Because Daphne and Astoria were raised together by the same father, their half-sister relationship was a lot trickier to spot; it was at the point now where they generally just saw each other as biological sisters. But due to the age difference between Tracey and Astoria, the two had never been able to attain such a relationship. As a result, they had formed more of a cousin/acquaintance relationship, despite having the same biological relationship as Daphne and Tracey.

"So Tori, you in on the big news?" Tracey asked.

"What big news?"

Daphne glared daggers at Tracey.

Tracey merely scoffed.

"Whaaaat?" Tracey grinned, "The Montrose Magpies! They just won three-one! No need for the overreaction, Daph,  _someone_ might think you're hiding something..."

"I thought you didn't like Quidditch?" Astoria asked.

Tracey shrugged. "There's a lot you don't know, sweetness."

"Are you  _done_  being a child now?" Daphne asked.

"Probably not, but live and let live. What're you two doing today?" Tracey asked.

" _Dying_ ," Astoria answered.

" _Stopping_  her from dying," Daphne answered. "We also have that Care of Magical Creatures essay we need to study for, if you want to join us later?"

Tracey laughed.

"No offense, but I would  _rather_  be dying."

"How nice," a recognizable voice entered the room.

At this sound, the three girls all straightened up. Daphne's and Tracey's backs arched and Astoria pulled herself into sitting position. Their eyes traced the room before all falling on their new intruder.

"Professor Snape!" Tracey exclaimed.

At some point, Snape had silently entered the room and approached them. The fact none of the girls were able to tell when this was sent a shiver up each of their spines.

"Greengrass, you're ill again," Snape addressed the youngest of the sisters, who was still wrapped up on the sofa. "You should have checked in with Madam Pomphrey."

"I'm sorry, Professor," Astoria apologized. "I was hoping it would pass."

"Hmmm. Better be safe than sorry, I'd say. If you aren't feeling better by the end of the day, check yourself in, or risk detention."

Daphne almost chuckled at his wording.

Care via force.

How very Snape of him.

"Sup, Professor?" Tracey asked.

Snape noticeably straightened up at this, as if he was about to recite a well-rehearsed speech. He coughed, and turned to address Daphne.

"Daphne Greengrass, I wish to speak with you in private."

Daphne felt a hot flush hit her.

She was in trouble, wasn't she?

This was because of the potion, wasn't it?

Feeling her anxieties rising, Daphne took a breath to regain her composure.

"Why is that, Professor?" she asked curtly.

Snape answered without a beat.

"It  _wasn't_  a request. My office, you have ten minutes."

With that, Snape turned and made his way out of the room.

The three sisters were left looking between each other in abrupt confusion.

* * *

"So Ginny… how've you been?" Harry broke the silence.

It took a second for Ginny to respond.

"I've been well."

Harry nodded.

"Good… Good."

When it was clear she wasn't about to following up his question, he continued.

"Look, about the other night…" Harry swallowed. "I didn't mean for it to escalate. I'm sorry. That I shouted, I mean."

Ginny's expression was blank and cold.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry was wondering perhaps Ice Queen would be a title better suited to her instead of Daphne.

"I'm sorry too," she said plainly.

Harry waited another moment for her to do her own apologizes, but again a heavy silence hung in the air.

"So, erm…" he bit his lips, "I've been thinking, you know, about things?"

His words seemed to perk Ginny's interest.

He took a breath.

He had her attention, they were on their own, now was his chance.

It was now or never.

"I've been thinking and, you're right, I haven't been spending enough time with you and… well, it's not fair on you. I've not been doing my part as a boyfriend. I know we agreed our relationship wouldn't be normal, but with me I'm making it so there's barely any relationship at all. I see this now."

You could drench his words in maple syrup, because they were one-hundred percent waffle.

"I've been terrible at doing my part in all this and honestly, you deserve better, Ginny."

Ginny was silent for a moment, before her eyes met the floor.

"You really feel that way?"

Harry nodded.

"I do. Everything you've been saying is right, I don't know why but I've been finding reasons to avoid everyone recently and… well, it's not what you need. I can't provide for you what I agreed to, and I'm sorry."

Harry couldn't see Ginny's face, and for what he was about to say next, he didn't particularly want to.

"I think you'd be better off without me."

* * *

"Professor Snape?" Daphne asked, after entering the Professor's office.

Snape was sat down at his desk, head resting on his hands and deep in thought.

As she entered, he pulled back and gestured for her to sit opposite him.

"Do you have any idea why I've called you here today, Miss Greengrass?"

Daphne sat down, eyeing her Professor suspiciously.

"I have suspicions."

Snape nodded.

"And what might they be?"

Daphne bit her lip.

Obviously, a huge event to have occurred recently was him catching her and Harry. But on the off chance it wasn't that, she didn't want to risk mentioning it first and making it awkward.

"My recent failure of the Kissing Concoction?" she suggested, slipping seamlessly into her Ice Queen persona.

Snape watched the girl over the bridge of his nose. Daphne hadn't seen him like this before. He looked… uncomfortable? Shy? Whatever it was, he was bordering between that and frustration. She could see it building in his face.

"In a way. Yes." Snape sniffed and sat forward in his seat. "You realize I had half a mind to go straight to your father, after what I walked in on the other night?"

Daphne's heart jumped into her mouth. The Ice Queen shattered.

"You didn't!?" she squeaked.

Snape pursed his lips.

"I didn't… But I could have. I should have. You don't need me to explain to you why fraternizing with the Potter boy could put us all at risk."

Daphne released a breath of relief.

Provided Snape hadn't already told anyone, so she could make this work. She would  _make_  it work, whatever his conditions were. He wouldn't have just brought this up now -over a week after it happened- for no reason. He clearly wanted something.

Then, she picked up on something he just said.

"At risk?"

Snape was silent for a moment, before pulling out his wand from his sleeve. With a flick of his wand, she heard the lock clank into place on his wooden door.

"Miss Greengrass…" Snape began, "whatever ties you have to the Potter boy, are ties that Dumbledore has to…  _You-Know-Who_ …"

Oh.

Oh.

_Ohhhhhh._

Now she knew where this was going.

"You need to watch your step… I don't know what rubbish the boy has filled your head with, nor do I particularly care, but he is to be treated as the enemy, need I remind you?"

Daphne bit her lip.

How did she want to play this?

Twist it around, maybe? Make Snape think he was the out-of-line one? She could make up some story about her infiltrating Harry on the Dark Lord's orders… that her mission was to make him fall in love with her and trust her, and then she'd hand him over to him? The idea was tempting to her, but then again, with Snape watching her so closely she might be expected to actually follow the plan through.

No… she had a better idea.

Daphne sighed.

"Professor I… look, I... I don't know what came over me."

Her voice cracked at the end of her sentence, causing Snape to perk an eyebrow.

"That night, I mean. One minute we're just doing the potion and the next… well… it kind of just…  _happened_. It was like a trance overtook me and I-I…" Daphne closed her eyes.

"I felt  _dirty_  after it happened. It wasn't his fault, either… you mustn't blame him, Professor, I think whatever h-happened got him too, I just… it was so… We felt like we were being  _controlled_. We weren't ourselves. We spoke about it afterwards, in the next detention. I know you told us to stay away from each other… but we just had to get things out in the open and… We agreed to never, ever speak about it  _ever_  again, Professor Snape. I've been trying so hard to forget about it."

Daphne sniffed, and her bottom lip began to tremble.

"I hate myself for it. P-Please don't tell my father, Professor Snape. He'd hate me, a-and he's all me and Astoria have. He'd disown me, tell me I'm a blood traitor and I'm not, I'm  _really_  not. I just don't know what happened… it was all one big, big massive mistake, you  _have_  to believe me, Professor."

She lowered her face, as though trying to hide her fake tears.

"And Potter has a g-girlfriend… I know you don't like him Professor, and I don't blame you but… she's done nothing wrong, she doesn't deserve this. P-Please don't tell anybody, Professor Snape.  _Please_."

Snape leaned back in his chair, almost repulsed at this sudden expression of emotion.

"Oh do grow up, Miss Greengrass, I expected more from you. And anyway… I believe I have some news, which will be of great relief to you."

Daphne sniffed in again, harder, and looked up, meeting her Professors eyes.

"What do you mean?" she asked in her most innocent tone.

"It appears… while you and Potter failed at creating a Kissing Concoction… You may have succeeded at creating something else."

Daphne raised an eyebrow.

She had been suspicious of this, but didn't have anything concrete. She decided to let Snape say his piece.

"Professor?" she asked.

Snape sighed and looked to the floor, before standing up. He took a step away from his desk, turning his back to her.

"Near as I can deduce… the potion instilled some kind of hormonal reaction in the two of you."

" _Pause for dramatic effect,"_  Daphne thought to herself.

"W-what does that mean?"

"It  _means_ …" Snape turned back around, "that for all intents and purposes, you were under the effects of a potion you accidentally created, and thereby cannot be held responsible for your actions. Which means luckily, for both you  _and_  Potter, neither of you is to blame for the occurrence. The potion has since been drained and destroyed... I imagine the fact you were not in your right mind probably comes as some sort of consolation."

"S-so," she choked, "it really wasn't me? It was an accident?"

"An accident brought on by the equal contributions of your own, shared incompetence… but yes, it was indeed an accident. And provided it stays exactly that, a one time accident… then I will  _happily_  do my part in forgetting about this whole, ugly affair."

" _Poor choice of wording,"_  she thought to herself.

"Oh, Merlin's Beard," Daphne clutched at her chest, "thank you, Professor! This has all been so hard on me, I can't tell you how much this means to me... Thank you, so much."

Snape unlocked the door with a flick of his wand.

"Greengrass, please. I've never seen this side of you before and, I have to say, I don't like it. You're one of my prized students, I expect you to act like it. Now clean yourself up and leave," he told her.

Then, after a minute, added.

"There are tissues in the second hand drawer."

* * *

Ginny's mouth was agape. Finally, she took her cue to speak.

"Harry, I… I can't believe I'm hearing this."

"I know, Ginny. You were right. You've been right all along."

The air grew silent between the two, and Harry let his words linger in the air.

He was subconsciously patting himself on the back. His first ever breakup, and he thought he'd handled it spectacularly! No tears, no shouting, quick, clean and simple!

Wording it so it sounded like her idea, though? He was really impressed with himself for that one. He took everything she had excused him off and agreed with her. That way, her mind would be put to rest, and she'd realize he wasn't worth the effort. Bravo to him, truly, bravo. Maybe a little bit of Daphne's Slytherin was rubbing off on him.

He was so glad to have this out of the way. All the sleepless nights, the feelings of guilt -they were about to vanish without a trace. Now he and Ginny were over, he  _technically_  wasn't doing anything wrong. Yes, she was still a Slytherin and he was a Gryffindor, but that was kids' stuff. Outside from that? She already told him she had no affiliation with the Dark Arts. Which meant he 100%, no longer had anything bad to feel about.

He had officially made it into the clear.

"Harry, I'm  _so_  glad you've said this."

He turned to Ginny, and saw her smiling brightly back at him.

Wait.

What?

"This is good for us! Now you've accepted there's a problem, we can work on it! We can get back to the way things were."

Wait.

No.

What?

Ginny leaned forward and enveloped Harry into a hug. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close.

"I really thought," she whispered into his ear, "I  _really_  thought, this was going to be the end of us. This is such good news. Thank you, Harry. I don't know what I'd do without you."

The world around Harry came slowly crashing to the ground. All the hope he'd been feeling seconds ago suddenly drained away.

"Yeah…  _hehe_ … me neither."


End file.
